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PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



BY 



FREDERICK ELMER BOLTON, Ph.D, 

DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION IN 

THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 

AUTHOR OF "THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SYSTEM OF GERMANY" 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1910 






s 



Copyright, 1910, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 




C!.A^65- 



PREFACE ix 

that every principle set forth is of such vital importance that 
its expression in a convenient hand-book will be welcomed. 
Additions and rearrangement will need to be made subsequently. 
It is hoped that this book will be regarded as a pioneer which 
may be useful in blazing a new trail into the land so full of 
promise. 

The author's plan in the class-room has been to make the 
lectures very informal. In writing them out for a larger audi- 
ence it is hoped that the informality has been to some extent 
retained. That will account in some measure for the size of 
the book. One great defect of pedagogical text-books hereto- 
fore has been their exceeding brevity and abstractness. They 
have contained summaries instead of substance. Such books 
prove unintelligible to beginners and unnecessary to advanced 
students. To teach well one must have an abundance of con- 
crete details and illustrations. The first chapter is intended 
merely as an introduction and differs from all the rest in being 
necessarily abstract and condensed rather than concrete and 
expanded. The beginner should read it on first approaching 
the subject for the purpose of orientation rather than with the 
expectation of mastery. The broad generalizations can only 
be fully comprehended after various subjects treated in the sub- 
sequent chapters have been studied. The student is advised 
to reread the chapter after the rest of the book is mastered. 

An attempt has been made to guide the reader to the rapidly 
growing literature of education. To this end direct quotations 
are frequently given and references appended. In this way 
the author has hoped also to give credit wherever due and to 
acquaint the reader with some of the many who are contributing 
so richly to the great work of education. 

F. E. B. 
Iowa City, Iowa, 

June, 1 910. 



CONTENTS 

Preface vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The New Interpretation of Education ... i 

II. Adaptation, Adjustment, and Specialization of 

Functions 16 

III. Development and Specialization of the Ner- 

vous System and the Significance for 

Education 28 

IV. The Theory of Recapitulation 63 

V. Educational Significance of Recapitulation . 88 

VI. The Culture Epochs Theory and Education, . 108 

VII. From Fundamental to Accessory in Education 119 

VIII. Instinct in Relation to Education .... 140 

1 IX. Nature and Nurture: Inheritance and Edu- 
cation 183 

X. Correlations Between Mind and Body . . . 231 

XL Work, Fatigue, and Hygiene . . .J .... 260 

/ XII. Individual Variations and Differences . . . 302 

XIII. The Nature of Memory Processes . . . . 322 

XIV. The Nature and Educational Significance of 

Association 349 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XV. The Wise Use and Training or Memory . . . 371 

XVI. Imitation in Relation to Education .... 397 

XVII. Sensory Education 431 

XVIII. Nature of Imagination 464 

XIX. Imagination and Education 488 

XX. Apperception in Relation to Education . . . 520 

XXI. Motor Expression in Relation to Education . 564 

XXII. The Nature of Thinking 584 

XXIII. The Concept in Education 601 

XXIV. Induction and Deduction in Education . . . 614 
XXV. Emotional Life and Education 633 

XXVI. Interest and Education 666 

XXVII. Volition and Moral Education 705 

XXVIII. General Discipline and Educational Values . 736 

Index 783 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 
THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION 

Popular View of Education.— Education is commonly meas- 
ured by the number of years of schooling one has had, the 
institutions attended, the subjects pursued, degrees conferred, 
and by other similar conventional measuring units. One whose 
school training has been abbreviated, who has not been through 
the traditional mill and ground out according to a standard 
pattern, is often said to be uneducated. Even many scholarly 
people think of the science or the philosophy of education as 
dealing wholly with methods of teaching the various school 
subjects or with school management. While the subject of 
education may be properly concerned with principles under- 
lying methods of instruction and management, it is by no means 
restricted to them. This popular conception of education as 
something confined to schools and school-rooms, the acquiring of 
book facts, formal drill and discipline, is altogether too narrow. 

New Interpretation. — Education is not a new process, but 
it is receiving new interpretation. Many of the means of 
education are of very recent origin; but education is in 
reality a process as old as the race itself. Whatever influences 
one in such a way as to determine his future conduct is a means 
of education. This is true whether the influence comes from 
external forces or as a resultant of one's own actions. Educa- 
tion may thus be good or bad; may elevate or debase. The 
school, though conventionally regarded as the only institution 
of education, is of comparatively recent development. But 



2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

it is not the most fundamental means of education, even though 
society tends to relegate all educational functions to it. Re- 
flection shows us that there are multitudes of influences which 
help to determine the character of every individual. A few 
of these factors will be considered. 

The Home as an Educator. — First consideration may 
properly be given to the home. This is the first institution to 
touch the life of the individual, and in many ways it is the 
most influential of all the forces brought to bear upon him. 
Though the school and one's business or profession give more 
definite mastery of technical accomplishments which come to 
be regarded as the fruits of education, yet the use to which these 
will be put is largely determined by the ideals developed in 
the home. Religious creeds are gained at the mother's knee, 
political beliefs are absorbed in the family circle, and social 
ideals largely fixed by family customs. Honesty, veracity, 
politeness, good manners, clean living and temperance, are 
most easily inculcated in the home. Likewise, on the other 
hand, immorality and unrighteousness may be generally traced 
to undesirable home influences. In fact, the ideals which 
dominate life and character and give them significance owe 
more to home influences than to all others combined. So im- 
portant is this early formative period that some of the churches 
say: "Give me the child for the first seven years, and, the 
world may have him the rest of his life." 

Institutional Influence. — Besides the home there are many 
specific institutions and activities that educate as really as do 
the schools. For the great mass they even provide the major 
portion of the training received. All forms of occupation fur- 
nish training and extension of one's horizon. Various scien- 
tific, historical and literary societies, clubs, lodges, labor organ- 
izations, and guilds, encourage the social instinct and give 
intellectual and moral uplift. Then there are special means 
employed to supplement the schools. Among these are lecture 
courses, public libraries, reading circles, chautauquas, and 
reading-rooms. The daily newspaper, the magazine, the 



THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION 3 

telephone, the telegraph, commercial intercourse, etc., all 
furnish knowledge and incentives for learning, and supply 
outlets for activities that contribute to the modification of the 
thoughts, taste, and conduct of the individual. Even plays, 
games, sports, and pastimes are of vast moment in the develops 
ment of latent capabilities and in stimulating new ones. In 
determining a boy's moral action the neighborhood environ- 
ment and the neighbors' boys are far more instrumental than 
the school. 

President Butler says: 1 "The doctrine of evolution teaches 
us to look upon the world around us — our arts, our science, 
our literature, our institutions, and our religious life — as an 
integral part, indeed as the essential part of our environment; 
and it teaches us to look upon education as the plastic period of 
adapting and adjusting our self -active organism to this vast 
series of hereditary acquisitions." Dr. Harris 2 emphasizes 
the importance of the state in education, and maintains that 
indirectly it is the most influential of all. He writes: "The 
influence of the constitution of the state, and of its transactions 
with other states in peace and war, weaving the web of world 
history, is known to be more powerful in educating the in- 
dividual and forming his character than any of the three phases 
of education mentioned (home, school, church), for it underlies 
them and makes possible whatever perfection they may have. 
Without the protection of the state no institution can flourish, 
nothing above savage or barbarous human life can be realized. 
. . . The state is the essential condition for history. . . . His- 
tory commences with the evolution of man's substantial self 
and its realization or embodiment in a state." 

Farm Life. — The duties and environment of the farm are 
often thought to be directly opposed to education. But well- 
ordered farm life offers the most advantageous sort of environ- 
ment and discipline that childhood and youth could have. At 
its best, when made significant through books, good schooling, 

1 Meaning of Education, p. 13. 

2 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 266. 



4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and the intelligent leadership of parents, it affords certain edu- 
cative means that money cannot purchase in crowded cities. 
To be deprived of its advantages and pleasures is almost calami- 
tous. The outdoor exercise and healthful recreations develop 
firm muscles and red blood, healthy brains, and vigorous con- 
stitutions, without which mental development can proceed only 
indifferently. The farm duties bring a sense of responsibility, 
so often lacking in city-bred children, and also secure motor 
training invaluable for all future accuracy of work and for will 
development. President G. Stanley Hall says: "Of all work- 
schools, a good farm is probably the best for motor develop- 
ment. This is due to its great variety of occupations, healthful 
conditions, and the incalculable phyletic re-enforcements from 
immemorial times. I have computed some threescore industries, 
as the census now classifies them, that were more or less gener- 
ally known and practised sixty years ago in a little township 
which not only in this but in other respects has many features 
of an ideal educational environment for adolescent boys, com- 
bining as it does not only physical and industrial, but civil 
and religious elements in wise proportions and with pedagogic 
objectivity, and representing the ideal of such a state of in- 
telligent citizen-voters as was contemplated by the framers of 
our Constitution." Because of its opportunities for immediate 
and prolonged contact with nature there is offered the best 
possible preliminary nourishment for the understanding and 
appreciation of science, literature, and art. Here is offered 
the chance to find "tongues in trees, books in the running 
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

The Playground. — The function of play as an educative 
factor is only just beginning to be realized. It is not long since 
play was very generally regarded by serious-minded people 
as sinful. We now know that through play the child not only 
gains necessary relaxation and invigoration, but the forms 
of play are instinctive expressions of the unfolding potentiali- 
ties gained through race experience. Play not only retraces 
ancestral experiences, but anticipates future adult experiences. 



THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION 5 

To work properly in adult life there must be natural and abun- 
dant play in childhood. Bagehot wrote : " Man made the school, 
God made the playground. Before letters were invented or 
books, or governesses discovered, the neighbor's children, the 
outdoor life, the fists and the wrestling sinews, the old games 
(the oldest things in the world), the bare hill, the clear river, — 
these were education; and now, though Xenophon and sums 
become obsolete, these are and remain. Horses and marbles, 
the knot of boys beside the schoolboy fire, the hard blows given 
and the harder ones received, — these educate mankind." 

Influence of Chance Environment. — Not only purposive 
influences educate, but also all chance environment. The 
slums educate as forcibly as do Grand Avenue, the church, 
and the school; a candidate for the penitentiary helps to edu- 
cate our boys no less than does the Sunday-school teacher. 
Sometimes the chance and baneful education is more forceful 
than the designed and elevating. According to Spencer's 
definition the purpose of education is to prepare for complete 
living. This even is a conception of an ideal education. Dewey 
has defined the term in a much more fundamental sense by 
declaring that education is not solely a preparation for some- 
thing in the future. It may include that, but there is something 
more basal. Education, he says, is life itself; and conversely 
life is education. Here is the only conception which is broad 
enough, even when we consider ideal education. According to 
this conception every individual becomes educated, in fact, none 
can escape it. Even the lower animals, as well as man, un- 
dergo education, for do not their experiences bias their future 
conduct ? 

Influence of Primitive Arts and Occupations. — Shall we 
not consider the stride from savagery to civilization as edu- 
cation? But through the long struggle there were no schools 
except the effective school of experience. In this struggle with 
the elements, with wild beasts, and with each other, were men 
not taught some things? Whenever one is taught anything or 
learns anything there is education. Were not primitive men 



6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

for long ages learning how to make implements for warfare, for 
the hunt, and the chase; learning to make fire, how to cook, 
and how to spin and weave; how to clothe themselves, provide 
shelter and protection; how to plough, plant, and harvest; how 
to cure disease and avoid pestilence; learning methods of trans- 
portation, barter, and exchange; learning how to dig, smelt, 
and fashion the ores; how to utilize the wind and water, and 
employ the simplest mechanical principles ? And when learned 
were these things not taught? And have they not influenced 
profoundly the whole character of subsequent history? 

We are prone to forget that the school of experience has been 
in session since the world began and there have been no vaca- 
tions. Nature has not missed assigning a single lesson. The 
credits received for the training have been recorded with ab- 
solute fidelity. The education which man has received in this 
wise is incomparably greater and the results are much more 
enduring than the results of a few centuries of formal education 
since schools began. In cudgelling his brains for some new 
school arts which might interest and profit the children it would 
be well for the school-master to take a retrospective glance and 
pass in review the school arts which mother nature has em- 
ployed. If he can discern anything which is related to getting 
a living, providing food, clothing, shelter, amusement, or ad- 
vantages, there he will find an interesting and effective school 
instrument. Utility has been the watchword of nature; it 
should be the school-master's. 

When considering the function of school training it is impor- 
tant to remember that the development and progress attained 
since the invention of systematic schooling might be represented 
by a dot, while that achieved in the pre-school period through 
the exercises gained in connection with the everyday occupa- 
tions in providing food, shelter, clothing, protection, and recrea- 
tion would have to be represented by a line of infinite length. 
If the educational values of industrial activities were correctly 
understood, we should utilize them far more than we now do 
in formal education instead of bringing forward something far 



THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION n 

Because of the necessity of understanding the past if we would 
build wisely for the future, all the great subjects of sociology, 
psychology, and education have come to be considered from 
the genetic or evolutionary point of view. If we would act 
wisely upon the individual mind or society we must take into 
account the present status and also the long, circuitous proc- 
esses by which the present has been attained. We must note 
what factors have contributed to the growth of desirable quali- 
ties and what have eliminated undesirable ones. We must also 
know the hidden potentialities which only need the slightest 
encouragement to blossom forth in rich profusion, as well as 
those whose counteraction demand elimination or suppression 
before the germs of good may be quickened into life. 

Education as Unfoldment and Adjustment. — Education is 
thus recognized as a manifold process of aiding the individual 
to come into full possession of all the desirable features of 
his heritage, to minimize the undesirable ones, and to initiate 
new tendencies. The child should be developed definitely in 
harmony with innate tendencies and toward the best ideals 
attained by the race. That is, both biological and social hered- 
ity are to be heeded. Education is consequently a process of 
development and of modification or adjustment to environ- 
ment and to the ideals of perfection conceived by society and 
by the individual. It involves all the forces operating to mould 
the individual. These forces include natural environment, 
social environment, institutional environment, as well as the 
factors of food, clothing, climate, etc. The amoeba has to 
adjust itself to a changing habitat. The freshman likewise 
has to adjust himself to the college surroundings, so different 
from his home village. Each is modified in the process, and 
successes or failures in life are measured by the power of ad- 
justment to the new conditions. 

"This period of adjustment," says Dr. Butler, 1 "constitutes, 
then, the period of education; and this period of adjustment 
must, as it seems to me, give us the basis for all educational 

1 The Meaning of Education, p. 15. 



12 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

theory and all educational practice. It must be the point of 
departure in that theory and that practice, and it must at the 
same time provide us with our ideals. When we hear it some- 
times said, 'All education must start from the child,' we must 
add, 'Yes, and lead into human civilization'; and when it is 
said on the other hand that all education must start from the 
traditional past, we must add, 'Yes, and be adapted to the 
child.' " Education thus viewed places weighty obligations 
upon each individual. Every person should become concerned 
for his own welfare and that of the race. 

Ideal Education Seeks Human Perfection. — Attention has 
been drawn to these lower forms of influence which bias 
conduct, in order to assist in understanding the complexity 
of the problem of ideal education. The formal processes of 
education are designed to be applied to an individual for the 
purpose of developing, modifying, or moulding him in harmony 
with ideal conceptions of development. These ideals may be 
conceived by the individual himself or by others concerned in 
his education. The processes may be applied by the individ- 
ual or by those interested in him. The highest results are not 
reached until the individual himself consciously strives toward 
ideal perfection. 

The National Educational Association at its annual meeting 
in 1905, at Asbury Park, New Jersey, voiced its sentiments 
concerning the highest functions of education. As a part of 
its resolutions it was stated that "the Association regrets the 
revival in some quarters of the idea that the common school is 
the place for teaching nothing but reading, spelling, writing, 
and ciphering; and takes this occasion to declare that the ulti- 
mate object of popular education is to teach the children how to 
live righteously, healthily, and happily, and that to accomplish 
this object it is essential that every school inculcate the love of 
truth, justice, purity, and beauty through the study of biography, 
history, ethics, natural history, music, drawing, and manual 
arts. . . . Character is the real aim of the schools and the ulti- 
mate reason for the expenditure of millions for their mainte- 



THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION 13 

nance." The foregoing are statements of the highest aim of 
education. Attention is directed to them in this connection to 
suggest that most of these aims are equally well inculcated out- 
side of formal school work. 

Education Concerns Posterity. — Education is not a matter 
which concerns the individual alone, but also his posterity. 
The effects of the education of a given generation do not ter- 
minate with its death but are transmitted to succeeding ones. 
Through heredity the results of education are conserved for 
society. Not only are the sins of the fathers visited upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generations, but also the 
virtues of the fathers are manifest through hundreds of genera- 
tions of them that love the Lord and keep His commandments. 
By his progress toward the ideals of the race each one should 
be a contributor to its desirable attainments and to higher ideals. 
One's education is relatively inefficient until he consciously 
strives to understand and approach perfection. Similarly edu- 
cation is at a low ebb where the majority of its individuals are 
not earnestly seeking higher development.' Every individual 
should realize the far-reaching effects of every thought, every 
feeling, and every action. One who grasps the full significance 
of education in the light of evolution cannot fail to be more con- 
cerned for the welfare of his fellow men and for posterity. The 
faithful conservation of all the effects of righteousness accounts 
for race progress. Such a conception is a doctrine of altruism 
and of the highest optimism. It is hoped that this is reflected 
in all the succeeding pages. 

Education and Evolution. — Viewed in this broad way, it is 
seen that education is an evolutionary process. Every situation 
in life tends to modify the individual and to produce new ad- 
justments. The whole of life is educative. Not only do ex- 
periences even passively received produce modifications, but on 
the part of all life there is a striving toward new conditions. 
This is true of life from the simplest amoeba to the grandest 
work of nature. These new conditions are the ideals. The 
multitude think of evolution as operative in the production of 



i 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

plant and animal forms, and generally as a force of the long-gone 
past, but evolution did not cease with the crayfish. It is going 
on all about us at a rate never before equalled or appreciated. 
The most mighty evolutionary force is that of the conscious 
education of human society. The function of education nar- 
rowly conceived stops with the training of individuals, but the 
ultimate object is not an individual, or even individuals, but 
society. The true educator must be concerned not only with 
adjusting John and Mary to particular niches in life, but he 
must look to the development of higher ideals for the whole 
human race and the conscious striving for and attainment of 
these ideals. Each individual should feel his obligation to 
leave society better than he found it. Because he stands on 
the shoulders of the past he is responsible and unworthy the 
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant," unless the world 
is the beneficiary through his having lived in it. 

Several recent writers, prominent among them Spencer, Fiske, 
Butler, and O'Shea, have emphasized the idea of education as 
a process of adjustment. They would not have us infer that 
the adjustment is an expedient of adaptation to unavoidable 
conditions of environment. In its higher phases it would cer- 
tainly involve the adjustment of the individual to the best ideals 
conceived by the race. Definite educational means seek to 
realize these very aims. 

Since education is as broad as life itself, the biological view 
will be made prominent throughout this book. The intimate 
relations between mind and body and the correlation between 
their functions make it imperative to give due consideration to 
certain physiological aspects of educational processes. But the 
superlative problem of every educator is to influence the mind, 
to produce modifications of intellectual, emotional, and voli- 
tional life. Hence a thorough knowledge of mind and its means 
of development should be the highest concern of every educator. 
In subsequent chapters the psychological aspects of education 
will therefore occupy a relatively large space. While no special 
section is set apart for a consideration of the social phases of 



THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATIO 

education, at every step the effect of society in shaping the inc 
vidual consciousness is recognized. Likewise, while no sepai 
treatment is devoted to educational ideals, yet a discussion 
this phase of the subject is interspersed throughout the boo 



CHAPTER II 

ADAPTATION, ADJUSTMENT, AND SPECIALIZATION 
OF FUNCTIONS 

General Considerations. — The previous chapter has prepared 
the way for a wider conception of education than that generally 
held by the popular mind. Most definitions of education char- 
acterize it as a preparatory stage for something yet to come. 
This is the truth, but not the whole truth. Spencer was right 
in regarding education as a preparation for complete living, but 
Dewey has furnished a desirable supplement by showing that 
all life processes and activities are a vital part of education. 
Consequently while we properly regard the formal, artificial 
educational processes as preparation for adult life, let us not 
forget that the very maintenance of an existence is a schooling 
more rigorous and influential than any artificial exercises we 
may interpose. 

Since all of life's experiences are contributory factors, whether 
we will or no, we must then include in our educational philosophy 
not only mental, moral, and even physical education, but we 
must make our consideration cover a field as broad as life itself. 
Biology, the science of life, is not confined, as many seem to 
suppose, to worms, insects, beetles, and algae; but includes man 
as well — not only physical but psychical and moral man. It is 
perfectly proper to speak of the biological consideration of 
memory, imagination, instinct, the emotions, love of right, etc. 
They all have their genetic or developmental aspect. In dealing 
with these, even in a practical way in the school-room, we ought 
to know how they differ in children and adults, in different 
families, in different children, in different races, their laws of 
growth and development, their instinctive beginnings, and their 

16 



ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 17 

hereditary variations. Consequently this and several suc- 
ceeding chapters will deal with the biological phases of 
educ? >n. 

ifch these preliminary remarks and with the admonition to 
keep constantly in mind that experience and education, funda- 
mentally considered, are one and the same thing, we shall enter 
upon the discussion of some concrete facts showing how adjust- 
ment of various organs, organisms, and functions to ever-varying 
conditions has produced modified organs, organisms, and func- 
tions, in harmony with the demands of new environments. 
Illustrations will be drawn from lower animal life and even 
from the plant world to exemplify the points under considera- 
tion. Similar processes though often infinitely more complex, 
affect man's progress and destiny and constitute the essential 
features of education. 

Adaptation in Unicellular Animals. — Without varied environ- 
ment and consequent varied experiences, development, progress, 
education in the best sense could not be. In the first chapter it 
was shown that anything is educative which acts upon individ- 
uals or a species so as to mould them to new ways or to bias 
their future conduct. The resultant tendencies constitute the 
education received. With this idea more firmly in mind, let us 
consider the unicellular animals in their relation to environment, 
and study in them a most primitive educational experience. 
These little creatures can exist only under tolerably uniform 
conditions. A slight increase or decrease of heat means de- 
struction to them. Their aqueous environment is a relatively 
simple, uniform, and unchanging medium in which to exist. 
They have little to learn to fit them for this environment. It is 
probable that they have been little modified through long ages. 
President Jordan says, "That the character of the body struct- 
ure of the Protozoa has changed but little since early geologic 
times is explained by the even, unchanging character of their 
surroundings. The oceans of former ages have undoubtedly 
been essentially like the oceans of to-day — not in extent and 
position, but in their character of place of habitation for ani- 



18 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mals. The environment is so simple and uniform that there is 
little demand for diversity of habits and consequent diversity 
of body structure. Where life is easy there is no necessity for 
complex structure or complicated habits of living." * But even 
here we find individual and race adaptations and modifications 
which permanently influence all subsequent actions. That is, 
these minute animals are in that sense educated. 

Experiments in Adaptation. — Lloyd Morgan records 2 the 
results of experiments by Dr. Dallinger to determine whether 
monads could gradually become acclimatized to a temperature 
higher than 6o° Fahr., that which is normal to them. By the 
end of four months the temperature had been raised to 70 
without destroying them. On reaching 73 adverse conditions 
were observed. A rest of two months was made at this point, 
and then the gradual increase resumed. In five months 78 
was reached. "By a series of advances, with periods of rest 
between, a temperature of 15 8° Fahr. was reached. It was 
estimated that the research extended over half a million gen- 
erations. Here then, these monads became gradually acclima- 
tized to a temperature more than double that to which their 
ancestors had been accustomed — a temperature which brought 
rapid death to their unmodified relatives." 

Although allowing for elimination of the unfit, Morgan says: 
"But in any case, the fact remains that the survivors had, in 
half a million generations, acquired a power of existing at a 
temperature to which no individual in its single life could become 
acclimatized. Here, then, we have the hereditary transmission 
of a faculty." Here we have an illustration of the permanent 
modification — -education — of a species through experience. 
These processes of adjustment of the individual to environment 
constitute the most primitive type of education. This is true 
of all the lower animals as well as of man. 

Effects of Experience. — There is a constant struggle on the 
part of each animal to master its surroundings and to put itself 
into harmonious relation with them as it understands them. 

1 Animal Life, p. 23. 2 Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 147. 



ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 19 

Each experience produces a modification of form, structure, or 
function, either physical or psychical, and the modification 
becomes a permanent possession, producing predispositions 
which tend to bias all future action. This means that the 
animal profits by experience. The process of learning by 
experience is education. Thus we see that all organisms receive 
education. It may not be according to our ideals, but there is 
education nevertheless. Not only man, but the lowly earth- 
worm and the amceba receive it. Not only does the individual 
gain an education, but through heredity the species is made a 
sharer and a contributor. 

In the effort toward adjustment there is always an accentua- 
tion of some function or organ. For example, in the effort to 
capture a certain kind of food certain organs or sets of muscles 
are brought into new use, or, as in the case of man, when mere 
muscular power no longer suffices he uses his wits to effect a 
capture. In the former case the muscles that underwent extra 
exercise became specially developed; in the latter the mental 
powers performed the extra work and were developed accord- 
ingly. Thus specialization has taken place because it has 
been advantageous. In fact, we may say, to paraphrase 
Spencer's cosmological formula, that the whole course of life 
development, that is, education, has been a process of change 
from that which is relatively simple, homogeneous, undifferen- 
tiated, unspecialized, to that which is complex, heterogene- 
ous, and specialized. This is as true of society as of animal 
structure. 

"With the increase in degree of the division of labor among 
various parts of the body, there is an increase in definiteness and 
extent of differentiation of structure. Each part or organ of 
the body becomes more modified and better fitted to perform 
its own special function. A peculiar structural condition of 
any part of the body, or of the whole body of any animal, is not 
to be looked on as a freak of nature, or as a wonder or marvel. 
Such a structure has a significance which may be sought for. 
The unusual structural condition is associated with some special 



20 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

habit or manner of performance of a function. Function and 
structure are always associated in nature, and should always 
be associated in our study of nature." * 

Necessity for exercise in a particular direction has either 
produced variations or accentuated them. These modifications 
have been preserved through heredity. This is the history of 
evolution, of progress, of education. While each individual 
tends to vary in some direction or other, heredity tends to con- 
serve with great jealousy everything gained. In this there is 
not complete success, for we find in some cases a loss of function 
and structure. 

Illustrations of Nature's Adaptations. — Among both plants and 
animals it is easy to cite a sufficient number of cases to demon- 
strate fully that the processes of adjustment to environing con- 
ditions are continually taking place. Not only are new species 
evolved in this way, but organisms selected from a given genera- 
tion and placed under changed conditions become very materially 
different from the specimens that remain under usual conditions. 
For example, if either plants or animals are removed from a 
terrestrial life to aquatic conditions, or from fresh to salt water, 
and succeed in adapting themselves to the new conditions, they 
undergo changes of external aspect, internal structure, and other 
modifications. A few illustrations are subjoined to make the 
point clear. De Moor says 2 the leaves of the water Ranunculus 
with laciniated leaves are of normal structure when grown on 
dry land. The epidermis is furnished with stomata and the 
constituent cells contain no chlorophyll. But when grown in 
water the leaves are much longer, have no stomata, and the epi- 
dermic cells are full of chlorophyll. Again, upon the authority 
of Goebel, De Moor says that cacti show remarkable adaptation 
to varying conditions. The Phyllocactus when grown in the 
light has a smooth stem, but when grown in the dark it becomes 
prismatic and thorny. The cactus and all the odd desert flora 
are doubtless the result of ages of struggle with peculiar climatic 
conditions. The cacti and each one of the other peculiar 

1 Jordan, Animals, p. 77. 2 Evolution by Atrophy, p. 26. 






ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 21 

guardians of the lonely waste had an ancestry quite unlike the 
present inhabitants. The edible mussel has one kind of shell 
if grown in shallow water, another if grown in deep water, and 
yet another if it lives in salt water. Shells vary in color accord- 
ing to the latitude and the depth of the water. We know that 
domestication produces changes in every species. It is seldom 
that a wild species when kept captive will breed. Darwin says: 1 
"Nothing is more easy than to tame an animal, and few things 
more difficult than to get it to breed freely under confinement." 
This is often true of plants as well as animals. The ancestor 
of the horse was a clumsy, five-toed animal that lived in swamps. 
But through a process of adjustment to new conditions necessi- 
tating flight as a means of preservation it lost first the great toe, 
then the fifth, and next the second and third, and now only one 
toe ever develops to functional maturity. The others assert 
themselves in embryonic stages, but so feebly as to give way 
entirely to the single toe, the only one which could now be of 
any use. The cloven hoofs with the " dew-claws" tell the tale 
of a process that did not continue to the same extent; but the 
record of adaptation is there, plain to him who understands 
evolutionary processes. We need but to ask a "show of hands" 
to secure ample corroboration of the story of adaptation to 
environment. We can get the whole series from the fins of the 
fish, the hand of the frog, the wing of a bat, the arboreal hand 
with the peculiar thumb of the ape, clear to the beautiful hand 
of man with its infinite potentialities. 

Adaptation through Artificial Selection. — English races of dogs, 
according to Darwin, 2 degenerate in a few generations and en- 
tirely lose their peculiarities of form and mental characters which 
formerly marked them off from all other breeds. Eimer showed, 3 
as early as 1872, through his study of the variability of the wall- 
lizard, that changes took place so rapidly that it ' might be with 
equal justice described as species or variety, so much does it 
differ from the original form. ... An instance is afforded in 

1 Origin of Species, p. 8. 2 Domestication, vol. I, p. 37. 

3 Organic Evolution, p. 3. 



$> 



22 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

this animal of undoubted natural race-production, which has 
evidently occurred in a relatively short period of time." 

It has been demonstrated that plants transplanted from 
plains to mountainous districts soon become accustomed to 
develop in a shorter period of time and at a lower temperature. 
The same thing is shown in taking grains grown in southern 
latitudes to more northern ones. They rapidly adapt them- 
selves to the new conditions, maturing in a considerably shorter 
period of time. Corn (maize) has been carried farther and 
farther north, and now large crops are raised in latitudes where 
it was formerly deemed absolutely impossible to cultivate it. 
That the changes are real and permanent is shown by the fact 
that if taken to the former habitat they have to become read- 
justed to that locality. Similar changes are being effected in 
the production of fruits. The great differences between domes- 
ticated plants and animals and their wild ancestors are so striking 
as to be discernible by all. These changes have all been effected 
in remarkably short periods of time. Among animals the psychic 
modifications are no less marked than the structural. Scientific 
agriculture, horticulture, and animal breeding are all demon- 
strating beyond doubt that new varieties and species can be 
produced at will and in incredibly short periods of time. The 
development of these new varieties and species is due to use and 
disuse. Characters which give advantageous adaptations are 
increasingly exercised and consequently developed; those which 
are disadvantageous fall into disuse and therefore tend to atro- 
phy or degenerate. My reply to an anticipated objection that 
natural selection is the cause of all variations will be in the 
words of Harris in summarizing the work of De Vries that natural 
selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot 
explain the arrival of the fittest. 

New Species through Adaptations. — De Vries maintains that 
the production of new species is nothing unusual. He also con- 
tends that the process of development of new species is not so 
slow as to elude observation. More startling still, he maintains 
that sudden mutations resulting in new species are the natural 



J 



ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 23 

and usual processes. His whole book, Species and Varieties: 
Their Origin by Mutation, is a professed attempt "to prove 
that sudden mutation is the normal way in which nature pro- 
duces new species and varieties. These mutations are more 
readily accessible to observation and experiment than the slow 
and gradual changes surmised by Wallace and his followers, 
which are entirely beyond our present and future experience" 
(p. 30). In another place he observes that "in horticulture, 
new varieties, both retrograde and ever sporting, are known to 
occur almost yearly." 

Variation and Specialization in Nature. — Species and individ- 
uals develop in special ways according to their own particular 
needs. In making the examination, let us keep in mind the 
pedagogical question whether uniformity among individual men 
is a prime consideration, or whether a great deal of variety is 
not a law of evolution and progress. 

Oftentimes different animals on the same general scale both 
physically and mentally, exhibit very different characteristics in 
some direction or other. Their success in life has been due to 
the possession of their peculiar development. Variations in 
function and structure in nature came about through the neces- 
sity for adaptation to conditions. Food-getting, self-protection, 
rivalry, defence of young, and accommodation to surroundings 
include most of the causes for adaptation in nature. A few 
illustrations will be given to show how special modifications are 
continually taking place. The native English sheep have de- 
veloped a long wool to protect them in a cool, damp climate. 
The giraffe's curious long neck is a result of continued high- 
reaching for food in a country where this was to be found mainly 
in trees. The different varieties of birds each have bills and 
claws especially adapted to their methods of food-getting. A 
stork with duck's legs and a hawk's bill would have a sorry time 
getting food under natural conditions, as would an eagle with 
stork's legs and crane's bill. Insect-eating animals have peculiar 
structures enabling them to secure food. The ant-eater is a 
good example. Insects' mandibles are wonderful instruments 



24 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

illustrating the adaptation of means to ends. The curious forms 
and structures of fishes are interesting illustrations of the same 
relation. Some can fly, others have swords, and there are those 
with spines that vanquish enemies; some have eyes on the side 
of the head, others on top, and still others are blind. The great 
variety of habits manifested by different animals have all been 
accumulated through long practice of certain activities necessi- 
tated by surroundings. Bats and owls are nocturnal, and bears 
and most insects hibernate through the winter. Some animals 
are solitary, others social. The opossum has learned to simu- 
late death, and the partridge practises deception in feigning a 
broken wing in order to lead enemies away from her brood. 
Through adaptation degeneration frequently occurs. This is 
true of cave animals. Certain insects that inhabit islands have 
lost their wings because flying insects are in danger of being 
carried out to sea. Protective coloration and mimicry afford 
striking examples of the laws of adaptation. "In general," 
says Jordan, 1 "all the peculiarities of animal structure find their 
explanation in some need of adaptation." 2 

Human Adaptations. — (a) Anthropological. We need scarcely 
more than mention the myriads of human adaptations that have 
occurred, some of them through the necessities imposed by 
chance conditions, others, as in the higher social and ethical 
life, designedly wrought in the attempt to realize higher ideals 
which we have formed. The historians have long since noted 
and emphasized the far-reaching importance of climate and 
geographic surroundings upon the development of peoples. The 
mountains and coast-lines of Greece, the seven hills of Rome, 
the arctic winter and intolerable nights of Greenland, the torrid 
sun and sweltering heat of Africa, and the fertile fields of America 
have formed the texts for many a chapter designed to show the 
effect of environment in shaping destinies. Reverse the sur- 

1 Animals, p. 147. 

2 Those who wish to follow out the varied data should consult works like , 
those of Darwin, Huxley, Cope, Brooks, and Romanes. The section on Re- 
capitulation recounts more particularly the evidence of man's line of development 
which has been established through the sciences of embryology and paleontology. 



ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 25 

roundings of the Eskimo and the New Englander, the Briton and 
the Abyssinian, and what inversions of character might have 
ensued. Indeed we may say that the chance environment sur- 
rounding one's birthplace to a large extent determines whether 
one is to be a dreamer or a doer, an idler or a producer, a savage 
or a progressive citizen. In fact, a few weeks only of a partic- 
ular environment at a critical time frequently decides whether 
one will become an upright citizen or a perverted sinner. 

As will be shown more fully in the discussion of heredity, only 
slight modifications of physical and mental characters can be 
produced in a single generation. Heredity is a great conserva- 
tive force. In sociology natural selection plays only a secondary 
role, while artificial selection is the dominant factor. The real 
problem of higher human education is to discover a desirable 
ideal life for each individual and then to shape his environment 
so as to contribute best to development in harmony with that 
ideal. This should not be a matter of chance, but a work de- 
manding the brightest intelligence and highest wisdom. 

Human Adaptations. — (b) Biological. The first weeks of life 
of all human beings and their entire ante-natal existence offer 
a close parallelism to the adaptations accomplished by lower 
organisms. The conditions of existence must be tolerably 
uniform or extinction is the penalty. That the babe is at first 
powerless to acquire any great range of activities or much 
dexterity is well known. Microcephalous and other idiotic 
children always remain in bondage to a circumscribed range of 
life and are powerless to initiate new things or to acquire them 
if instructed. It will readily be granted that it is a long stride 
between education of this sort and post-graduate university 
education, but the difference is one of degree. The processes 
are similar. 

In childhood, and in fact throughout life, the main adaptations, 
as is true of the protozoans, are concerned with the every-day 
problems of existence. As in the case of the micro-organisms, 
the human being learns to avoid or inhibit that which is harmful 
or disadvantageous, to repeat that which is pleasurable or bene- 



s> 



26 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ficial. Thus many activities become stereotyped and largely a 
matter of routine. Not only does an individual follow grooves 
which have been established by experience — by education — but 
the same is true of the race. Instinct, as will be explained more 
fully later, is simply a race habit, or the standardized results 
of race education. The individual and the race virtually become 
"repeaters." This is not the whole of education. To progress 
much there must be independence of thought, initiative, inhibi- 
tion, resistance, deliberation, voluntary variation from stereo- 
typed action. But all of these higher depend upon the lower, 
and, as will be shown, are even more efficient when the lower are 
best developed. In fact, it must not be forgotten that conserva- 
tion is equally as important in life as are variations. It is even 
as important for progress. The frog which climbs out of the 
well ever so fast makes no progress if he slips back with equal 
rapidity and regularity. 

The School-master Should Imitate Nature. — It is a part of 
nature's great plan to fix immediately every advantageous ac- 
quisition. The successful school-master must again consider 
her ways and be wise. All learning must be put into some vital 
relation to the every-day thoughts and actions of life, otherwise 
the child is ever acquiring but never conserving. Nature builds 
absolutely sure foundations by fixing "for keeps" everything 
acquired that is worth while. In our hot-house educational 
methods our tendency is forever to sample new things and never 
grow a single process into the texture of muscles, brains, and 
minds. At the close of such an education the individual is as 
limp as a squash vine — possesses no real fibre physically, men- 
tally, or morally. This is especially true of much present-day 
moral and intellectual education. Intellectual and moral truths 
are learned, not to be put into effective relations, but to be given 
a mere kaleidoscopic exhibition on examination day. Obsolete 
arithmetic problems are learned for the examinations, not for 
their every-day value; children babble a catalogue of the bones, 
but fail to learn and practise a single, real, hygienic principle like 
deep breathing or temperate eating. They tattle proverbs, mum- 



ADAPTATION OF FUNCTIONS 27 

ble words of morality, sing hymns — even say prayers — in a per- 
functory way with no thought of the application to their own lives. 
Such teaching cannot produce the results we claim for education. 
Formal educative acquisitions should become integrated with 
every thought, every feeling, and every proposed action of our 
every-day existence in exactly the same manner as the racial 
educational experiences have become integrated. Otherwise they 
disappear like the dew before the morning sun, and there persist 
only the oft-repeated, manifoldly related impressions and proc- 
esses that are gained through the school of experience. Every 
impulse is a resultant of thousands of experiences repeated in 
manifold variations. 



CHAPTER III 

DEVELOPMENT AND SPECIALIZATION OF THE NER- 
VOUS SYSTEM AND THE SIGNIFICANCE 
FOR EDUCATION 

Beginnings of Self-Activity and Sensitivity. — Among inani- 
mate substances like the rocks, minerals, water, and the clod of 
earth, we observe no evidences of sensitivity or of active response 
to the influences of environment. To be sure, chemical changes 
take place, but the substances are apparently inert and passive 
unless brought into contact with other substances for which they 
have affinities. 

But in the plant world we observe a very definite reaction to 
certain stimuli. In the spring, under the influence of heat, 
light, and moisture, plants put forth buds, leaves, and shoots; 
the sap circulates, and they . increase in size, extend their roots, 
develop blossoms and finally fruit. Although outside conditions 
must be favorable, yet we notice that the plants of their own 
energy attack the surrounding atmosphere and the soil and ap- 
propriate what is necessary for their growth. So great is the 
energy put forth that small roots work their way through large 
pieces of wood, pierce crevices of the rocks, and sometimes even 
rend stone walls. Fruits like the pumpkin, when harnessed, will 
lift hundreds of pounds, and delicate plants will under certain 
conditions lift many times their own weight. Dr. Harris * 
writes: "One may admit that the environment acts on the 
plant, but he must contend for the essential fact that the plant 
reacts on its environment, meeting and modifying external influ- 
ences." That plants turn toward the light or bend in certain 
ways is not because of any purposive force within the plant, but 

1 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 27. 
28 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 29 

merely because of heliotropism or geotropism. There are only 
a few cases in which plants seem to exhibit sensitivity, powers 
of locomotion, and definite reaction in securing some end. The 
sensitive plant and the Venus fly-trap seem to respond to touch 
by certain movements. In spirogyra the process of conjugation 
seems to be accompanied by purposive movements on the part of 
the plant cell. But it is quite possible that these cases are also 
merely tropisms of some sort brought about by outside forces. 

No Nervous System in Plants. — Although plants manifest such 
definite evidence of self-activity and even crude sensitivity and 
power of response, yet there is no evidence of that wonderful 
mechanism — the nervous system. Not only is the nervous sys- 
tem lacking, but biologists do not generally concede the posses- 
sion of nervous tissue. But if there is sensitivity and power of 
response even in the slightest degree, does this not suggest, at 
any rate, some substance capable of receiving stimuli and trans- 
mitting impulses? 

Homogeneity in Protozoans : Educational Suggestions. — Not 
even all animals possess a system of nervous mechanisms. 
Protozoans, of which the classi- 
cal little amoeba (see Fig. 1) is a 
good representative, are practi- 
cally undifferentiated in struct- 
ure. The amoeba is composed of 
a cell-wall enclosing a body of al- 
most homogeneous protoplasm. 
Occasionally a few granules ^ . , . . . 

J ° tig. 1. — Amoeba prince ps, x 150. 

Whose Structure and function The same animal in various shapes. 

(From Orton.) 

are unknown are present. This 

little animal possesses the powers of digestion, respiration, a 
certain crude sensitivity, and locomotion. In a certain sense 
it remembers, imitates, and learns. All of these functions are 
carried on by means of the single undifferentiated cell. In 
other words, a single homogeneous organ performs several 
functions, performing each as well as any other, no one in a 
superior manner, but all most crudely. In education we have 




30 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

heard much of " all-round" training. Verily, here is an example 
par excellence of an "all-round" individual. When the amoeba 
is affected by a stimulus — light, for example — it is not necessary 
that any particular portion be stimulated, for the whole body is 
equally sensitive. When it reacts, it does so not with a hand, 
a foot, a lip, a tongue, but with the entire body. It may contract 
one portion of its body, but it expands in another. In what 
direction it will move, or what part of its body will move most, is 
unpredictable. Just as it has no eye to be stimulated by light 
waves, no ear to be affected by sound waves, no special organs 
of touch or temperature, it does not react with a definite portion 
of the body and in a particular direction. A man feeling too 
strong a light would move his chair, pull down a curtain, turn 
away, or ask some one to change the conditions. That is, he 
would do a definite thing and bring special organs to bear in 
accomplishing the result. He would co-ordinate stimuli with 
means and modes of reacting and accomplishing definite ends. 

Primitive Nervous Structure. — The amoeba possesses no 
nervous system. Zoologists have usually said that it possesses 
no nervous substance. But its sensitivity seems to point toward 
the possession of something akin to nervous material. The 
generalization that "there is no psychosis without neurosis" 
assumes that every sensitive organism must possess some 
nervous substance which through the action of stimuli gives 
rise to "neuroses," the concomitants of "psychoses." In some 
respects the animal possessing sensitivity is different from the 
plant, devoid of that quality. But the protozoans possess no 
system of nervous structure. Consequently, when the amoeba 
is affected by outside stimuli the nervous energy generated is 
diffused, instead of being confined to special tracts. Some of the 
higher protozoans, such as the slipper animalcule (paramcecium) 
and the bell animalcule (vorticella) , are somewhat more differ- 
entiated in structure and in function, but in none of the pro- 
tozoans do we find anything approaching a nervous system. 

The Elementary Structure and Function of a Nervous System. 
— The purpose of the nervous system and the sense organs is 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 31 

to enable the individual to gain a knowledge of the outside world 
through stimulation and to respond in some manner to those stim- 
ulations. The sense organs are in part, as in the retina, merely 
specialized portions of the nervous tissue. In part they are 
specialized portions of the skin so sensitized as to receive certain 
stimuli from the outside world. These stimuli are transformed 
into nervous impulses by means of the nervous system. These 
nervous impulses in turn become the antecedents of muscular 
activity and in some cases the concomitants of mental processes. 




Fig. 2. — A group of human nerve cells drawn to scale, X 200 diameters. 

A, B, C, D, F, cell bodies and the beginnings of the processes ; E, cross section of 
a large nerve fibre. (From Donaldson's Growth of the Brain, p. 142, modified 
from Waller's Human Physiology.) 



The fundamental elements which compose the nervous sys- 
tem are the neurons (Figs. 2, 3). The neurons consist of a cell 
body with short branching processes, the dendrites, and an axis 
cylinder or axon. Branching off from the axon are usually 
many fibrils, termed collaterals. Neurons vary greatly in size, 
from the minutest microscopic dimensions to three feet in 
length. The different neurons are not anatomically continu- 
ous, but communicate by mechanical contact only. If the 
neural substance of the nervous system could be entirely freed 
from the connective tissue and blood vessels and be much 
magnified, it would present a distinctly fibrous or fibrillar ap- 
pearance, rather than the jelly-like appearance so familiar in 



32 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



the macroscopic view. This fibrous mass comprises many 
bundles of fibres and other organized pathways for the dis- 
charge of nervous energy. The muscles and their connections 
with the neurons complete the specialized equipment whereby 
we are enabled to react upon our environment. 

The whole arrangement is admirably adapted for the special 
functions of a nervous system, viz., the liberation of nervous 




Fig. 3. 

A—D, showing the phylogenetic development of mature cerebral cells in a series of ver- 
tebrates : a-e, the ontogenetic development of growing cerebral cells in a typical 
mammal. A, frog; B, lizard ; C, rat; D, man; a, neuroblast without dendrons; 
6, c, developing dendrons ; d and e, appearance of collaterals. (From Donaldson, 
op. cit., p. 146 ; from S. Ramen y Cajal.) 

energy and the conduction of nervous impulses. To live a com- 
plex life, to be highly educated, multitudes of co-ordinations must 
be established between stimuli and reactions. This function the 
nervous system is wonderfully fitted to fulfil. Without some 
such mechanism, complex adjustments would be impossible. 

The Reflex Arc. — The simplest sensory-neuro-muscular mech- 
anism enabling an animal to gain definite impressions of the 
external world and to react in a somewhat definite manner, is 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



33 



Muscle I 




End Organ 

Fig. 4. — Schematic representation of 
the reflex arc. 



the reflex arc. This consists of (1) a specially sensitized surface 
or end organ, (2) a sensory neuron connected with the end organ, 
(3) a motor neuron, and (4) a muscle connected with the motor 
neuron. 1 The accompanying diagram (Fig. 4) represents sche- 
matically the simplest reflex 
arc in the human spinal 
cord. 

Beginnings of Differenti- 
ation and Organization. — 
Among the radiata, includ- 
ing the echimoderms and 
ccelenterates, we observe 
much more specialization in 
general structure, and also 
the beginnings of a quite 

different nervous organization. The starfish may be taken as 
an example (see Fig. 5). There is a ganglion at the base of 
each radiating arm, connected with the oesophageal ring. A 
branch extends from each ganglion along each arm. The star- 
fish possessing the beginnings of a 
nervous system, when stimulated, 
can react definitely with a partic- 
ular portion of the body. Some 
recent experiments upon the starfish 
show that it can even be trained to 
move a particular ray upon the 
application of a particular stimulus. 
Nervous energy is directed along a 
particular channel and there is co- 
ordination of means and ends. This 
relation is only possible with a ner- 
vous system. The brain is the organ 
par excellence for co-ordinating functions. The medusae possess 
a radiate structure similar to the starfishes, but no approach 
toward a central nervous organization. They possess several 

1 See Howell's Text-Book 0} Physiology, p. 143. 




Fig. 5, 



-Nervous system of 
a starfish. 

r, nervous ring around mouth; n, ra- 
dial nerves to each arm, ending in 
the eye. (From Le Conte.) 



34 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



2>9 



nerve cords, but they do not meet one another in a common 
centre of radiation. "It is difficult to see," writes Le Conte, 
"how such an animal can have a common consciousness," 
meaning thereby that co-ordinated action of all parts toward 
a common end could not be effected. 

The mol usca present an increasingly com- 
plex organization in general and more varied 
and definite functions, and we find here a 
nervous system of increasing complexity. 
New parts requiring to be moved are to be 
found. This necessitates new ganglionic 
centres. In the acephalous mollusca, typi- 
fied by the clam and the oyster (Figs. 6, 7), 
although there is no well-defined head, yet 
one part is distinctly the anterior portion 
and another the posterior. Corresponding to 
this distinct advance 
over the radiates, 
there are two ante- 
rior ganglia on each 
side of the mouth. 
These are connected 
and also communi- 
cate with the posteri- 
or ganglion by means of two long lateral 
nerve fibres. In some cases, as in the 
clam, there is a ganglion in the organs 
of locomotion, called the pedal ganglion. 
The gasteropods (snails, etc., Fig. 8) 
and the cephalopods (cuttle-fish, squids, etc.) possess in addition 
distinct cephalic ganglia. These classes of animals possess 
much more perfect organs of locomotion and also have some 
well-developed sense organs, especially eyes. The articulates, 
including the worms, insects, etc., have a nervous system pecu- 
liarly adapted to their general structure and their activities. 
The locomotor apparatus is highly developed and the nervous 




Fig. 6. — Nervous sys- 
tem of a clam. 

eg, cephalic ganglion; Pg, 
pedal ganglion; vg, visce- 
ral ganglion. (From Le 
Conte.) 




Fig. 7. — Nervous system 
of an oyster. 

c, cephalic ganglion; v, visceral 
ganglion. (After Le Conte.) 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 35 



mechanism is largely subservient to this function. In general 
there is a chain of ganglia, one double ganglion for each seg- 
ment. Branching off from this ganglion 
are small thread-like nerves. There is 
definite cephalization, but doubtless the 
cephalic ganglia may be regarded mainly 
as optic ganglia, for the eye is well devel- 
oped in large numbers of the series. They 
also control the special organs of touch, 
the antennae. In addition these lobes seem 
to be the seat of the other senses, which 
are beginning to make their appearance. 
Nervous and Mental Correlations. — 
Among the higher articulates, the arthro- 
poda, which comprise the Crustacea (Fig. 
9), arachnida, myriapods, spiders, and 
insects, we find examples of a high degree 
of intelligence. Ants, bees, and wasps, 
for example, through the entertaining ac- 
counts of their great sagacity by Lubbock 
and Romanes, have become classical ani- 
mals. Peckham has also shown that spi- 
ders are endowed with intellectual powers 
far in advance of what is generally known of them. The senses 
of sight and touch are exceedingly well developed, and in many 
the sense of smell. Ants are said to track each other, like dogs, 
by the scent. They display considerable power of memory in 
the way they recognize friends long separated, the way they find 
their homes after long absences, and in the way they learn to 
profit by experience. Lubbock ascribes to them the emotions 
of sympathy and affection and speaks of their valor, rapacity, 
and pugnacity. They are known to keep slaves, to have cows 
or aphides; they are able to communicate their ideas to each 
other, and are said to be given a course of education. Romanes 
writes: "It is led about the nest, and trained to a knowledge of 
domestic duties, especially in the case of the larva?. Later on 




Fig. 8. — Nervous system 
of a snail. 

c, cephalic ganglion; e, oeso- 
phageal ganglion. (From Le 
Conte.) 



36 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



the young are taught to distinguish between friends and foes. 
When an ant's nest is attacked by foreign ants, the young ones 
never join in the fight, but confine them- 
\\¥ selves to removing the pupae." This, he 

&3^^7jC~/ claims, has been shown by Forel and 
Mott to be instinctive. 1 They have their 
wars, are said to have play periods, in- 
dulging in games as well as in work, and 
they have harvest times. 

In the articulated series of animals the 
nervous development shows a nice adjust- 
ment between the needs and habits of the 
animals and nervous structure. Their 
mode of life demands a highly developed 
locomotor apparatus and we notice the 
separate ganglion for each segment, which 
in turn usually supports a pair of legs or 
some special means of locomotion. Thus 
each segment is practically independent, 
though controlled in a general way by 
the cephalic ganglia. 

According to Carpenter practically the 
whole existence of invertebrated animals 
is reflex and instinctive. The arrangement of their nervous sys- 
tems is well adapted to this. If we make exception of ants, 
bees, and wasps, and possibly some spiders, doubtless his char- 
acterization is correct. They learn very little by individual ex- 
perience. Knowing the life history of the species, we may 
predict with much certainty the actions of the individual. 

Vertebrate Nervous Systems. — When we pass to the vertebrates 
we find a much more highly specialized and real system of ner- 
vous organization. All vertebrates possess an axial and a gan- 
glionic system. The axial system consists of a continuous tract 
of gray matter surrounded by white matter and lies along the 
dorsal side of the body. This tubular mass is enlarged at the 

1 Animal Intelligence, p. 59. 




Fig. 9. — Nervous system 
of a crayfish. 

c, cephalic ganglion; 0, optic 
nerve; oe, oesophageal gan- 
glion; sg, spinal ganglia. 
(From Le Conte.) 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 37 

anterior end into a brain and gives off varying numbers of pairs 
of nerves along the whole length. 1 These numbers vary from 
about twenty in frogs, and forty-three in man, to 
a couple of hundred in sawfishes. In the am- 
phioxus, or lancelet, which is the lowest verte- 
brate, there is nothing that can really be called 
a brain. We have here the first example of 
an axial tube, the most fundamental part of the 
nervous system of vertebrates. The amphi- 
oxus possesses no eyes, no ears, no nose, and 
consequently no optic, auditory, or olfactory 
lobes. There is simply a fringe of filaments 
about the mouth, which may serve as rudi- 
mentary senses. The spinal cord gives off no 
branches. In fact, in the amphioxus and the 
lamprey, the lowest of fishes, the spinal cord is 
practically the entire nervous structure. From 
this fundamental simple structure let us note 
the gradual evolution of the highly complex 
nervous structure of the animals which per- 
form the highest and most complex actions. 

The nervous system of vertebrates comprises 
the brain, spinal cord, and the nerves. The 
brain and the spinal cord make up what is 
usually termed the central nervous system, and 
all the rest, excepting the sympathetic system, 
is called the peripheral system. The nervous Fig. 10.— Human 

brain, spinal cord, 

system is the most complex and highly special- and parts of radi- 
ized system of the entire anatomy. It is com- atl "^ ne ™ es - 

J J (From Orton.) 

posed of two kinds of neural substances, known 
from their color as the white and the gray matter. In the brain 
the gray matter is situated chiefly on the outside of the brain 
structure, forming the cortex; while in the spinal cord the 
white substance is on the outside, and the gray matter forms 
the central core. 

1 In all species except the very lowest. 



38 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



With the development of the organs of special sense we find 
a corresponding increase in the size of the cephalic lobes, and 
the nervous system becomes correspondingly complex and dif- 
ferentiated. In fact, in the lower vertebrates the brain is 
largely an aggregation of centres or lobes controlling special 
sense organs. These centres are differentiations of the original 



Side view. 



Top view. 




Fig. ii. — Brain of fish. 1 



spinal axis and not specializations of an originally undiffer- 
entiated brain. The cerebral portions of the brains of man and 
other higher adult mammals so overgrow and obscure the orig- 
inal lobes that the order of evolution is not always appreciated. 
All fishes except the very lowest possess a quite highly special- 
ized brain (Fig. n). The cerebellum and the cerebrum are in 



Side view. 



Top view. 




Fig. 12. — Brain of reptile. 



evidence. Still, in fishes, the brain averages only about one- 
twentieth as large as it does in man. Olfactory lobes are defi- 
nite, but the dominant features are the optic lobes. Sight 
seems to be the most important factor in the search for food 
and eluding pursuit of enemies. The sense of smell does not 
seem to be very prominent and there is little evidence of hear- 
ing in the true sense. 

The cerebrum first makes its appearance as the largest lobe 
in the brains of reptiles (Fig. 12). Still, all the lobes of the brain 

'In figures n— 16 observe the following: of, olfactory lobe; ol, optic lobe; 
cr, cerebrum; cb, cerebellum; m, medulla. (From Le Conte — except Fig. 15.) 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 39 

are distinct and visible and the brain is not a homogeneous mass, 
but rather a succession of distinct lobes. The optic lobe is 
rather smaller than in fishes. The cerebellum is small and 
comports well with the general sluggishness of the animals. 
The medulla, the cerebral and cerebellar lobes, are exceedingly 
important additions, inasmuch as they seem to be the chief 



Side view. 



Top view. 




Fig. 13. — Brain of bird. 

organs for the co-ordination of movements which make complex 
associations possible. Even the most awkward and most loath- 
some reptiles probably display more intelligence than fishes. 

The nervous systems of birds present a considerable advance 
over those of the reptiles (see Fig. 13). The brain as a whole is 
considerably greater in proportion to the weight of the body, and 



Side view. 



Top view. 




Fig. 14. — Brain of mammal. (Cat.) 

also in proportion to the weight of the spinal cord. The cerebral 
hemispheres are greatly increased in size and present some evi- 
dences of convolutions — the first to be met with in the animal 
series. In the main, however, they are still smooth, as in fishes 
and amphibians. The olfactory lobes are not highly developed 
and, like the optic lobes, are largely covered by the cerebrum. 



40 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



"The cerebellum," says Carpenter, " is of large size in conformity 
with the active and varied muscular movements performed by 
animals of this class; but it consists chiefly of the central lobe, 
with little appearance of lateral hemispheres." l 

The various parts of the brain are no longer in serial order 
and a continuation of the spinal cord, but the brain is more of 
a homogeneous aggregation and the lobes seem more important 
than the stem. 

When we come to mammals, we find many distinct advances 
in organization over any previously met. Not only do mammals 



Side view. 



Top view. 





Fig. 15. — Brain of man. 

as a class show higher development, but from the lowest to the 
highest mammalia there are also great strides. The differences 
are not only external but dissection reveals many advances in 
inner organization. The most obvious variation is in the ex- 
traordinary development of the cerebral lobes in proportion to 
the rest of the brain and the entire nervous system (see Figs. 
14, 15, 16). In most of the mammalia these overgrow the brain- 
stem and the sensorial lobes so completely as to obscure them 
from view in the external examination, especially in lateral or a 
top view. In examining the brain of a higher mammal the nov- 
ice would scarcely suspect that all the lobes were out-growths 
from the brain-stem. He would be apt to regard the brain as 
a unit and the spinal cord as an offshoot. 

1 Mental Physiology, p. 79. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 41 




The cerebellum in this series attains greater and greater im- 
portance. One other very important difference remains to be 
noted. All animals below mammals have practically smooth 
brains. The mammalia possess convoluted brains and the 
convolutions in general increase in number and complexity as 
we pass from the lower to the higher within this order. Man's 
brain possesses the most highly convoluted structure of all. 

Le Conte's diagram (Fig. 
16), showing the compara- 
tive development of the 
whole range of vertebrate 
brains, is very striking and 
extremely suggestive. The 
diagram not only shows the 
comparative sizes of the 
different brains as a whole, 
but also sets out in a very 
telling manner the relative 
proportions of the different 
lobes. It also illustrates 
the relation of the lobes 
to the original brain-stem. 
Have we not in this diagram a very forceful suggestion of the 
entire history of adaptation and education? 

Comparisons Summarized. — In this very brief sketch of the 
comparative structure of the nervous system we have found 
several important differences in the various orders of life. The 
same kinds of differences are also distinguishable between the 
lower and the upper species of the same order. (1) There are 
differences in the amount of nervous matter possessed. There 
are all gradations from the amoeba, practically nerveless, to man 
with a brain weighing approximately four pounds, besides an in- 
tricate system of nerves, fibres, and ganglia. (2) There are varia- 
tions in the proportionate weights of brain and the entire nervous 
system. (3) There are differences in the amount of specializa- 
tion. (4) In the ascending scale of life the cerebral lobes come 



Fig. 16. — Diagram showing comparison 
of the different lobes of the brain in the 
ascending series of vertebrates. 

Note the variation in the cerebral lobes. (After 
Le Conte.) 



42 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



to be more and more prominent (see Fig. 16). (5) The convolu- 
tions, in general, are more numerous and deeper in the higher 
forms of life. (6) The degrees of specialization of the brain 
and nervous system correspond very closely with the different 
degrees of mental life. (7) There is a close parallelism between 
the zoological scale and the psychological scale. 

Localization of Functions. — Not only is the vertebrate nervous 
system divided into specialized portions, as the brain, the spinal 




\XII- 



FiG. 17. — Human brain from under side. < 

/, olfactory bulbs; //, optic commissure; /// to XII, cranial nerves. 
(Drawn by Call.) 

cord, and the nerves, but each of these parts is composed of 
still further differentiated tissues possessing particular functions. 
There are sensory and motor nerves, various tracts in the spinal 
cord; and the brain, which is a marvel of specialization, is itself 
composed of many lobes and areas each presiding over a specific 
function. Even the large divisions of the brain, the medulla, 
the cerebellum, and the cerebrum, are highly specialized. The 
control of special functions by certain specialized areas of the 
brain is termed localization of function. Many of the more 
obvious functions have been very definitely localized, others are 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 43 

indefinite and under controversy, while in still other cases it is 
impossible to determine the specific functions of a given area, or 
conversely, to locate the area controlling a given function. It is 
quite probable that all parts of the nervous system may perform 
a variety of general functions in addition to the specific ones. 
Localized Functions in Human Brain. — Man's central nervous 
system is estimated to have at least three billion nerve cells. 
Each one of these bodies is an entity, in a sense as separate and 
distinct and as simple, as a single amoeba, yet all are united by 
living relations into a wonderful system. Although the organs 
work together as a unity, yet each has a special function to per- 
form for the benefit of the whole. Thus each works with and 
for all, and all work with and for each. The nervous system is 
divided into the brain, the spinal cord, and the nerve fibres, and 
the brain in turn is subdivided into parts having special functions 
to perform. Briefly stated, the main functions of the several 
parts are as follows : 1 

I. The medulla oblongata controls (1) the centres funda- 
mental to life processes, such as (a) respiratory, (b) cardio- 
motor, (c) cardio-inhibitory, (d) vaso-motor; (2) the centres 
concerned with alimentation, including (a) mastication, (b) 
deglutition, (c) vomiting, (d) sucking; (3) the centres controlling 
the eye, including (a) winking, (b) dilatation of the pupil; (4) 
the centres controlling secretions, including (a) salivary, (b) 
lachrymal, (c) perspiration. 

II. The cerebellum contains centres especially connected with 
(a) emotional life, and (b) centres for co-ordination of move- 
ments. 

III. The cerebrum contains (1) the hemispheres, which are 
primarily centres controlling psychical processes, (2) the basal 
ganglia, chief of which is the optic thalamus connected with the 
sense of sight, (3) the corpora quadrigemina connected with 
sight, and (4) the internal and external capsules, the former of 
which is associated with both sensory and motor processes. 
The functions of the latter are not well known. The hemi- 

1 Whitaker, Anatomy oj the Brain and Spinal Cord, p. 156. 



44 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



spheres contain several well-marked areas, (a) the centre for or 
connected with sight occupying the occipital lobes and the 
angular gyrus; (b) the centre associated with hearing situated in 
the temporal-sphenoidal lobe; (c) the centres controlling taste 
and smell situated in the temporal lobe but within the brain and 
seen only in a median section; (d) the speech centre in the left 
inferior frontal convolution (in left-handed persons this centre 
is on the right side) ; (e) the motor centres located in the region 




Fig. 18. — Lateral surface of the human brain, showing certain localized areas. 
(Drawn by Call.) 

of the ascending frontal and parietal convolutions, adjacent to 
the fissures of Rolando and Sylvius. 

Means of Determining Localization. — The functions, of the 
specialized areas of the brain have been determined in two ways. 
Disturbances of function have been observed during the life of 
the individual and post-mortem examinations have revealed in- 
juries or disease in certain portions of the brain. When a suffi- 
cient number of cases have been observed showing the same facts 
of functional derangement and anatomical disease or lesion, rea- 
sonable certainty of the relation may be assumed. But there is 
another method of discovering and testing these facts and rela- 
tions. By stimulating a given portion of the brain when exposed by 
accident or vivisection, muscular reactions are occasioned and the 
direct relation may be easily discovered. Many purposive experi- 
ments have been performed and much valuable evidence acquired. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 45 

If the brains of dogs or monkeys, or other animals, are stimu- 
lated electrically, well-defined movements are produced in some 
part of the body; for example, in the face, tail, fore-leg, hind-leg, 
according to the portion of the brain stimulated. Moreover, the 
movements produced are on the opposite side of the body. All 
experiments confirm the belief that each hemisphere of the 
brain controls functions on the opposite side of the body. The 
crossing of nerves in the medulla indicates the same fact. 

If a portion of the brain is excised or destroyed, the correspond- 
ing functions will be inhibited or destroyed. Paralysis of various 




Fig. 19. 



-Mesial surface of the human brain, showing several localized areas. 
(Drawn by Call.) 



organs results from disturbance of certain portions of the nervous 
system. The disturbance may be caused by pressure or de- 
generation. In many cases caused by pressure, physicians are 
able to diagnose accurately and afford relief by cutting into the 
skull and relieving the pressure. Trephining to relieve paraly- 
sis is now very common. Halleck cites two cases. The first 
was that of an epileptic patient in whom all the preliminary 
twitchings began in the left shoulder. "The surgeons cut a 
circular hole immediately over the shoulder centre. Beneath 
the incision they found a small tumor, which they removed." 
The second case was that of a sewing-girl in whom all the pre- 



46 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

liminary convulsions began in the right thumb. "The surgeons 
cut through the skull directly over the motor centre for the hand. 
Then they stimulated the brain cortex until they found a surface 
where the thumb alone was flexed. It was necessary to deter- 
mine this point accurately, for if the brain beyond this was 
injured, the hand and entire arm would be paralyzed. . . . 
The surgeons succeeded in removing the thumb centre alone, 
and, as a result of the operation, her epileptic attacks were fewer 
and milder in number. She also had the use of her hand." 1 

Of the wonderful accuracy and progress in localizing brain 
areas, Dr. Keen wrote: 2 "When I say that the existence of a 
tumor about the size of the end of the forefinger can be diagnosti- 
cated, and that before touching the head it should be said that 
it was a small tumor, that it did not lie on the surface of the brain, 
but a little underneath it, that it lay partly under the centre 
for the face and partly under that for the arm in the left side of 
the brain, and that the man was operated on, and the tumor 
found exactly where it was believed to be, with perfect recovery 
of the patient, it is something which ten years ago would have 
been deemed the art of a magician rather than the cold precision 
of science." 

Localization of Brain Not Exceptional. — There is nothing 
strange in the fact of localization of function in the brain, 
although some people are incredulous concerning it. No one 
regards it as strange that the body is divided into head, trunk, 
arms, legs, hands, heart, liver, and spleen, each subserving a 
specific function which no other organ can perform. It is 
accepted as a matter of course that the eye cannot hear, the ear 
see, or the hand taste. Even the division of the nervous system 
into brain and nerves excites no comment. But as soon as 
specialization of function in the various portions of the brain 
is mentioned, doubts begin to arise. Of course, the different 
parts are related — sometimes very closely indeed. So also are 
the ear and the oesophagus, both having arisen from the same 

1 Education of the Central Nervous System, p. 15. 

2 Vivisection and Brain Surgery. 




Fig. 20. — Localized areas of the brain, 
showing association fibres. 

(After Starr, from Donaldson's Growth oj the Brain, 
p. 267.) 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 47 

original tissue. The linings of the stomach and the outer skin 
of the body are the same in origin. Traced to their origins we 
find that the brain, muscles, bones, skin, hair, and in fact all 
the varied tissues of the 
body were derived from 
common ancestral cells. 
A given kind of food may 
be taken by one individ- 
ual and simply build up 
bone and muscle, while 
taken by another it may 
serve to develop brain 
and furnish the physio- 
logical basis for evolving 
idealistic philosophy or 
writing poetry. A dog and a man may subsist on an identical 
quality and quantity of food, but how different the resultants! 

The facts revealed by an examination of the brain of Laura 
Bridgman were very significant. She was in possession of all 
her senses until three years old, when scarlet fever deprived 
her of the sight of the left eye. She could see a little with her 
right eye until eight, when she became entirely blind. From 
three years of age she was stone-deaf. Consequently she was 
devoid of experiences to awaken the areas of sight and hearing. 
It was found that those areas of the brain were much less well 
developed than the corresponding areas of normal brains or 
the other areas of her own brain. Dr. Donaldson, who made 
the examination of the brain with such minute care, said: "In 
this connection it is interesting to notice that those parts of the 
cortex which, according to the current view, were to be associ- 
ated with the defective organs, were also particularly thin. 
The cause of this thinness was found to be due, at least in 
part, to the small size of the nerve cells there present. Not only 
were the large and medium-sized nerve cells smaller, but the 
impression made on the observer was that they were less nu- 
merous than in the normal cortex." As we now might expect, 



48 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

he found the right side of the cortex in the occipital region 
much thinner than the left side. Undoubtedly the earlier blind- 
ness of the left eye caused the earlier arrest or atrophy of the 
left side of the visual centre, and the experiences in seeing with 
the right eye, even though poorly, for a few years, caused the 
superior development of the centre controlling that eye. 1 

Association Tracts a Form of Localization. — Another type of 
brain specialization and localization of much interest and im- 
portance educationally is found in the special mechanisms for 
association. These are the association fibres (a) connecting the 
adjacent convolutions; (b) those connecting different tracts, es- 
pecially those connecting the frontal and occipital, and the frontal 
and temporal areas; and (c) those connecting sensory and motor 
areas (see Fig. 20). The commissural fibres connecting the two 
hemispheres are in reality association fibres securing harmony 
between the actions of the two halves of the brain. 

The groups of association fibres connecting the various con- 
volutions are so definite as to be readily seen with the naked 
eye, as are those between the larger lobes. These are all well 
established by heredity and only await proper stimulation to 
develop fully. That they need proper exercise is shown by the 
facts that at birth they are undeveloped and they develop best 
in those with normal experiences. In the feeble-minded they 
are poorly developed. 

Obscure Association Tracts. — But there are other association 
paths not so easy of observation ; in fact, most of what we know 
of them is through the observed data of nervous anatomy and 
the well-tested data on the transmission of nervous energy, 
and through our knowledge of functional relations established. 
While we cannot always see the relations by a study of anatomical 
structure, we can observe the behavior through expression. Just 
as we know that every impression must result in some motor 
expression, we are also sure that every series of muscular and 
psychic connections is the consequent of nervous connections 

1 Donaldson, On the Brain of Laura Bridgman, Am. Jour, of Psych., 
Sept., 1890, Dec, 1891. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 49 




Fig. 21. — Projection fibres of the human brain. 

(After Starr, from Donaldson's Growth of the Brain, p. 
256.) Note howall the-tracts of projecting fibres have 
their origin in the original stem of the nervous system. 
They represent specialized portions and go to still other 
specialized portions. 



established. Any set of sensory cells may become connected 
with any other sensory cells or any other motor cells. We know 
that we connect visual impressions with other visual impressions, 
and also with sounds, 
tastes, and smells, and 
with a variety of motor 
activities. Because of 
these psychic relations 
and because of the knowl- 
edge of psycho-physical 
parallelism we know that 
neural connections are 
established, though not 
possible to be seen. In 
fact, the brain, as sug- 
gested before, is a won- 
derful co-ordinating ma- 
chine. The greater the 
complexity of co-ordinations and the finer their adjustments, the 
higher the type of brain and the higher the type of intelligence of 
its possessor. Contrast the brains and activities of a reptile with 
those of man, who can play a piano, make a watch, construct 
an engine, or paint a picture. 

Undoubtedly a caution should be given against thinking that 
all functions can be localized or that each portion of the brain 
can be demonstrated to control a particular function. Special- 
ists in anatomy and physiology are particularly cautious in their 
statements on this matter. A good many facts have been 
definitely established and much progress is being made. 1 Un- 
doubtedly each complex action functions in many centres, and 
also without doubt each centre functions in many kinds of 
actions. The association tracts connecting the various centres 
are probably much more specialized and limited in their func- 
tions than are the centres. May we not compare the centres to 

1 See Howell, Text-Book of Physiology, chap. IX; Church and Peterson, 
Nervous and Mental Diseases, pp. 161-180; and other medical works. 



5 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

offices carrying on a multiplicity of functions, receiving, inter- 
preting, and sending, while the pathways, ingoing and outgoing, 
are limited in function ? Furthermore, should not the whole 
circuit — ingoing impulse, transforming centre, associating con- 
nectives, and outgoing impulse — be regarded as a localized 
centre ? Thus the topography becomes very complex and diffi- 
cult to localize. Certain great centres, like vision, hearing, 
taste, and smell, are tolerably definite, but all complex activities 
must become lost in the maze of centres and connectives. This 
does not minimize the reality of localization — in fact, emphasizes 
it — but gives us the concept of dynamic relations rather than 
topographical defmiteness alone. 

Donaldson says: * "The sensory impulse reaching the cortical 
cells may thus be compared to a complex sound wave striking 
upon resonators, each one of which picks out that vibration to 
which it has been attuned and responds to it. Moreover, to 
push the simile further, the pitch of responsive cells may be 
altered by the play of other impulses upon them, and thus the 
analysis at different times is not the same. Refinement in the 
structure of the cerebral cortex may, therefore, be developed in 
three ways : first, by the multiplication of the pathways bearing 
the incoming impulses; second, by rendering more sensitive to 
slight differences in the stimulation those cells whose function 
it is to receive these impulses; and third, by increasing the num- 
ber of the central cells. So far as can be seen at present, the 
brains of the lower and less intelligent mammals are inferior in 
all these respects, but are most deficient on the side of the afferent 
and central elements." 

Importance of Cerebral Specialization. — Professor Ewald 
Hering wrote of the specializations of the cerebrum: "The 
different parts of the hemispheres are like a great tool box with 
a countless variety of tools. Each single element of the cere- 
brum is a particular tool. Consciousness may be likened to 
an artisan whose tools gradually become so numerous, so varied 
and so specialized that he has for every minutest detail of his 

1 Growth oj the Brain, p. 268. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 51 

work a tool which is specially adapted to perform just this precise 
kind of work very easily and accurately. If he loses one of his 
tools he still possesses a thousand other tools to do the same 
work, though under disadvantages both with reference to adapta- 
bility and the time involved. Should he happen to lose one of 
these thousand also, he might retain hundreds with which to do 
the work still, but under greatly increased difficulty. He must 
needs have lost a very large number of his tools if certain actions 
become impossible." 

Diffusion of Energy Before Specialization of Function. — In 
the human infant do we not find rather amoeboid diffusion of 
nervous energy ? For a long time, although sensitive to a great 
variety of stimuli, its muscular co-ordinations are very crude and 
uncertain. At first the hand clutches objects convulsively, and 
is very liable to drop them, because the constant dispersion of 
nervous energy causes new contractions and expansions. To 
learn to creep, sit, stand, and talk requires months, even years, 
and ceaseless trial and error. To be able to pick up a pin, hold 
the knife and fork properly, or to button clothing, means long 
strides in the educative process. 

Even in processes of formal instruction we find analogous con- 
ditions. When the child begins to write, instead of holding the 
pencil lightly and executing with ease and facility by means of 
fore-arm or finger movements, he grasps the pencil with all his 
might, his body writhes and his face is in contortions. Why 
this exhibition ? Simply because a superfluous amount of ner- 
vous energy is being liberated, useless movements are set up, and 
the energy instead of being confined in particular channels is 
diffused. It is interesting to watch some adults try to cut with 
scissors. The nervous energy is so diffused that part of it goes 
to the jaws. In learning to tie a knot, in learning to skate, etc., 
much energy is diffused and useless movements occur. 

Education a Process of Forming Organized Pathways. — Edu- 
cation is thus seen to be in part a matter of forming organized 
pathways of discharge in the nervous system. This is true 
whether of simple activities or those more complex ones con- 



52 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

nected with formal educative processes. For example, in learn- 
ing to talk the child must spend many months of laborious 
effort in accustoming the vocal organs to respond to the mandates 
of the mind. Some have maintained that the reason the child 
does not pronounce his words accurately is because he does not 
hear accurately. It is true that the acquisition of fine discrimi- 
nation among sounds is of slow growth, yet careful experiments 
reveal that children hear accurately considerably before they are 
able to control accurate vocalization. Learning to sing necessi- 
tates fine adjustments and co-ordinations and often requires 
much time. In learning to speak a foreign language the diffi- 
culty experienced in pronunciation, stated physiologically, arises 
because nervous energy is diffused instead of being confined to 
definite pathways of discharge. 

Since much of every-day education is concerned with muscular 
reactions, the problem is to establish definite co-ordinations in- 
suring prompt and easy responses. This implies the formation 
of definite nervous mechanisms which shall serve as pathways 
of discharge of nervous energy. Halleck says that these habit- 
worn channels are as necessary as good roadways in the settle- 
ment of a new country. It is just as necessary to develop 
pathways of nervous discharge, so that nervous energy may take 
paths of least resistance, as it is to have insulated wires to trans- 
mit electricity. Uninsulated wires diffuse the currents while 
insulated wires limit them to definite channels. 

The largest and most important business of education is to 
establish myriads of appropriate and efficient associations be- 
tween stimuli and responses. The man is to be taught so that 
when stimulated to write, draw, pull a throttle, or manipulate a 
surgical instrument, he can do so with precision and dexterity. 
Such results are consequent only upon long practice, that is, 
through the establishment of habits of well-worn pathways of 
nervous discharge. 

Formation of Association Paths. — Some simple cases will be 
taken to illustrate the process of establishing association paths 
through educative processes. Suppose one is to learn to recog- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 53 

nize another and to call him by name when they meet. An 
association must be established between the sight of the person 
(element a) and the sound of the name (element b). The first 
time the name is heard an attempt is made to fix the name in 
connection with the visual appearance, i. e., a connection is set 
up between a and b. Neurologically a transfer of energy has 
taken place from the centre of sight to the centre of hearing, 

which we may designate diagrammatically as a > b. 

The next time the stimulus comes the action is a little easier and 
at succeeding times still easier. Nutrition is supplied, the neu- 
rons grow to that mode, and soon the track becomes thoroughly 
established physically and mentally, the action becomes reflex, 
and a habitual response is the result. Since little attempt is 
made to recall the image through the sound of the name, the 

path a > b is much better established than the path 

b > a. In fact it is possible for the association from 

a > b to become practically automatic with little or 

no power of recall in the other direction. Witness this in learn- 
ing the alphabet in one direction, in translating from German 
to English, etc. Selecting a case from the school arts — learning 
to read and write a word — we find a much complicated set of 
processes. It would be essentially as follows : The child know- 
ing the visual appearance of the cat would learn the word cat 
as it sounds, thus establishing dynamic connections between 

a > b. As he associates reciprocally the word and the 

object, he establishes a dynamic relation in the opposite direction 

or from b— > a. His new work in learning to read is 

to establish relations between sound and sight. It is doubtless 
some time before the sound of the letter calls up its sight. 
Speaking children must learn to pronounce the word when seen 
or heard or when the object is beheld. 

Gradually reciprocal associative relations must be estab- 
lished between seeing the object or the word, hearing the word, 
and writing. Ultimately the paths between each centre and 
every other centre controlling a particular element must become 
so established that any one may act as a stimulus to call up 



54 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

every other. The various processes are schematically repre- 
sented in Fig. 22. 

In most of our knowledge some one element in a v group usually 
serves better than any others as a stimulus. In becoming ac- 
quainted with persons, for example, the visual percept is much 
more liable to awaken recognition than is the name. The 
relations are probably largely dynamic, but not less real than if 
large bundles of fibres had actually been developed. This is 
no more improbable than the fact that electricity passes through 
some substances in one direction better than in another, or that 
one end of a magnet will attract and another repel. Outwardly 
we can observe no reasons for the behavior, but the behavior is 
our witness. The microscope reveals no difference between the 
magnetized and the unmagnetized iron, but we all know that 
they are different dynamically. That nerve currents travel in 
one direction better than in another we also know through the 
behavior, even though outward appearances of structure may 
not reveal it. 

Conservation and Cumulation of Effects. — It may be well 
again to assert here that whenever a stimulus produces a change 
in the nervous system the resultant effect is conserved. The 
law of the conservation of energy in nature is as operative here 
as in the case of iron affected by torsion, one solid struck by 
another, heat converting water into steam, etc. The same law 
holds true in the psychic realm. Nothing is lost, and nothing 
comes by chance. Whenever the nervous system has been 
modified, on the recurrence of the same stimulus it is able to 
react more successfully and the path is in the process of becom- 
ing the path of least resistance. Inhibitions are built up in a 
similar manner. That is, whenever discomfort arises from a 
given action the connection tends to be weakened and oppos- 
ing paths established. 

We have a right to believe that the effects of every experience, 
no matter how insignificant, are registered. The effects are 
cumulative and by this means development proceeds. Although 
we are unable to determine by any known means just how much 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



55 




Fig. 22. — Schematic representation of the 
paths of association formed in reading 
and writing. 

(Drawn by Call.) 



a brain is modified by a lesson in arithmetic, Latin, or psychology, 
yet we are absolutely confident that some modification has taken 
place and that it will be conserved. If we had microscopes 
powerful enough and 
means of applying them 
to the brain, we could 
doubtless note the close 
relation between exercise 
of function and the de- 
velopment of structure. 
We should find that those 
centres of the brain which 
are opportunely exercised 
upon the right material 
develop better than other 
centres deprived of ap- 
propriate stimuli. We should note a difference between the 
growth of some children mentally starving for want of appropri- 
ate stimuli and others forging ahead because abundantly sup- 
plied, just as we see the differences between the pale faces and 
emaciated bodies of some and the ruddy complexions and robust 
forms of others. 

The facts of aphasia have contributed much to our knowledge 
of the intimate relation between the development of nerve ele- 
ments and mental growth. They also show how experience — 
education — has to build neural connections between different 
centres. Most of our percepts and memories are exceedingly 
complex and may be aroused through numerous channels. In 
aphasia, which is merely loss of memory of a special type, it 
frequently happens that elements which have once served as 
stimuli to awaken the entire chain of relations fail to serve in this 
capacity. For example, it may occur that a man is unable to 
write his name when he sees it written while he may still be able 
to write it if it is pronounced. He may be unable to pronounce 
his name if he hears it, but may be perfectly able to do so if it is 
written. He may be unable to speak or write the word bell if 



56 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the bell is seen, though he can do so if the bell is rung. The 
explanation is that the association tracts between some of the 
different elements have become functionally deranged through 
disease or pressure and the transmission of impulses is inhibited. 
Sometimes it is very temporary, caused by fatigue, and some- 
times much more serious, when lesions have been produced. 

Effects of Use and Disuse. — Just as the efficiency of physical 
and mental action is destroyed by injuries to the central nervous 
system and the various interconnecting pathways, so the brain 
may fail to become an efficient instrument by lack of develop- 
ment of the cell elements and the various connecting fibres. 
Neurologists inform us that the number of cells is probably as 
great at birth as at maturity. But all except the lowest levels 
controlling the vital functions are "unripe." Experience — edu- 
cation — must determine the number that come to functional 
maturity. Through experience medullation begins to take place 
and connections to be established. Stimulations from the out- 
side world begin to pour in through the senses and development 
proceeds. At first very simple sensory experiences and motor 
reactions are established. Later the association fibres become 
so well established and so complex in character that real thinking 
and deliberation may take place. These are not possible in a 
simple system where energy is diffused as is the case in lower 
animals and immature children. The association fibres in the 
human brain make their best development during adolescence, 
though growth does not cease until maturity — probably later. 
Coincident with this neurological development the power of 
thought proceeds. It is futile for teachers to expect thought 
power to manifest itself until the anatomical substructure is 
established. Since the anatomical development is contingent 
upon nutrition, sleep, rest, and various hygienic factors, it is 
preposterous to expect good mental development regardless of 
them (see the chapter on "Fatigue"). 

Importance of the Plastic Period. — If nerve cells are ever 
developed to functional maturity and efficiency, it must be ac- 
complished during the plastic period of childhood and youth. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 57 

During these periods the nervous system is responsive to educa- 
tion. It is a notable fact that restitution of function may occur 
when brain injuries occur in childhood and youth, but seldom 
later. In man the paralysis of a limb caused by brain injury 
is usually permanent, but in a child not frequently so. Injury 
to one hemisphere occurring in youth may be compensated by 
special development and transference of function to the other, 
but in adults this is no longer possible. 

"The intensity with which any form of exercise is carried on 
during the growing period leaves its trace, and the absence of it 
at the proper time is for the most part irremediable. We should 
hardly expect much appreciation of color in a person brought 
up in the dark, however good his natural endowments in this 
direction. Thus any lack of early experience may leave a spot 
permanently undeveloped in the central system — a condition of 
much significance, for each locality in the cerebrum is not only 
a place at which reactions, using the word in a narrow sense, may 
occur, but by way of it pass fibres having more distant connec- 
tions, and its lack of development probably reduces the associa- 
tive value of these also. " * 

Donaldson further says: 2 "It has been made probable that 
by the cultivating processes of school training the formed struct- 
ures tend to be strengthened, dormant elements roused to better 
growth and organization, and made more perfect in this or that 
direction according to the nature of the exercise. By strength- 
ening the formed cells their powers of differential reaction, of 
organic memory, and resistance to fatigue are increased. By 
associating given sets of muscular reactions with given sense 
impressions habits are formed, in consequence of further organ- 
izations among the nerve elements, and finally nutritive rhythms 
associated with the periods of activity and rest are established, 
with the result of economizing the bodily energy, and rendering 
its expenditure more effective." 

Correlation of Nervous, Muscular, and Mental Actions. — The 
only means we have of knowing mind is through muscular 

1 Donaldson, Growth of the Brain, p. 348. 2 Op. cit., p. 344. 



58 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

responses. If we are to interpret psychic processes correctly, 
then there must be accurately co-ordinated sensations and mus- 
cular reactions. What one says orally or writes, what one 
paints, models, moulds, or makes, how one uses his various 
muscles, indicate what his mind is doing. Even in examining 
students to determine their grades we are obliged to rely upon 
some of these manifestations. If they speak or write incorrectly 
we judge that their thoughts have been inaccurate. From im- 
pression to expression is a law of psycho-physics. It is exceed- 
ingly important in education. It will be shown later that im- 
pressions and expressions react reciprocally upon each other. 
Just as we may know of the healthful activity of mind and 
brain through muscular actions, we may also discern signs of 
mental disease. Warner says: 1 " The general condition of the 
nerve-system is expressed by motor signs — freshness, fatigue, 
irritability, all may be indicated to us by movements of the 
child, the absence of movements, or by the attitude or posture of 
the body, which depend upon motor action." 

It thus becomes perfectly apparent that the problem of educa- 
tion is as much concerned with the education of the nervous 
system as of the mind. Later discussions will also go to show 
how much it is concerned with muscular adjustments and the 
co-ordination of mental and muscular activities. The brain is 
the great co-ordinating organ, making possible higher forms of 
choice, inhibition, and volition. To succeed in improving or 
systematizing the child's expressions means that corresponding 
improvement has taken place in his brain and nervous system. 
Every controlled and co-ordinated movement means the correla- 
tion of well-defined brain tracts and association areas. Con- 
versely improvement of the brain and the establishment of 
organized pathways of nervous discharge are necessary for im- 
proved mental action. 

Evolution of Nervous System Means Education. — It is readily 
noted that the nervous system becomes more and more complex 
with the ascending scale of life. In the lowest forms of life, 

1 The Study of Children, p. 40. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 59 

with simple needs and activities, no nervous structure is ever 
visible. Their organic structures are as undifferentiated as their 
functions and activities. With the appearance of differentiated 
functions arise specialized structures to fulfil the varied functions. 
We may go even further and assert simply a biological law, viz., 
that the specialized structures arise through the exercise of 
special forms of activities. That is, the experiences functioning 
in a particular way accentuate organs and cause their develop- 
ment in harmony with the actions. The individuals and even 
nervous organs of the individuals become accustomed to acting 
in specialized ways because these modes are found advantageous. 
Each activity tends to develop the function and structure still 
further. Habits are engendered which tend to be conserved, 
and in this way the future conduct is determined. As before 
stated, whatever biases the individual, or an organ, toward a 
particular mode of conduct is educative. 

Thus the whole development and specialization of the nervous 
system in the ascending orders of life represent a process of 
education. The type of growth and the manner of functioning 
at any given stage represent the resultant of all previous ex- 
periences — education. As fast as activities have been experi- 
enced nature has recorded the effects indelibly in the nervous 
system. Thus, while the nervous system of any organism repre- 
sents the kind and degree of possibilities of further experiences, 
it reciprocally indicates the kind and degree of experiences which 
have been received. While it is true, for example, that the brain 
of the bird is not fitted for a very high order of thinking, it is 
equally true that the birds and their ancestors have never 
indulged in very complex mental gymnastics. The most funda- 
mental life processes, physical co-ordinations, relatively simple 
perceptions of sight, sound, and smell, have sufficed for their 
preservation. In the more sagacious animals like the dog, ape, 
and elephant, we find much more complicated brain structures 
both as a cause and as an effect of their increased intelligence. 
The cerebellum, the lobes of sight, smell, and hearing, are no 
smaller, and there is a noticeable increase of cerebrum. 



60 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Experience (Education) Has Produced Development. — In man 

we find that the cerebrum is vastly larger proportionally than in 
any other animal, and also that the frontal areas are for the first 
time prominent. Even in human beings we find that there is a 
great difference between the development of the frontal lobes of 
the lower and the higher races, and between children and adults. 
This is very significant educationally. It represents again, both 
cause and effect; possibilities and resultants of education. 
There is absolutely no question that the adult with the well- 
developed frontal brain areas is capable of thinking, reasoning, 
and willing in a way impossible to a child in which this develop- 
ment has not yet taken place. Similar differences between 
civilized and primitive man are equally apparent. It is also 
thoroughly demonstrable that education will tend to produce 
this development, or lack of it cause degeneration and atrophy. 
Venn studied the growth of the heads of Cambridge students 
and found that the heads of the best students grew longest 
and largest. Measurements secured before and after their 
university course showed that their cranial growth was 
greater than in non-students at corresponding periods. In- 
vestigations show that loss of brain weight, common to 
middle life and old age, does not take place so early nor so 
rapidly in the case of eminent men as in others. Although 
their brains have an inherited initial superiority, yet neurol- 
ogists believe that there is no doubt that judicious mental 
exercise postpones decline. 

Donaldson, on the authority of Bischoff, says that the final 
decrease in the weight of the encephalon usually begins in men 
at about fifty-five years, and in women some years earlier. His 
curves indicate that the decline in the weight of the brains of 
eminent men is deferred till after sixty-jive years. 1 This, how- 
ever, should not seem strange. Persons who maintain a vigor- 
ous muscular tone through rational physical exercise preserve 
their muscular vigor until a later age than those who have never 
cultivated their muscles. 

1 Growth oj the Brain, p. 325. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 61 

Galton regards proper exercise of the brain as a prerequisite 
of growth and a lack of it as a cause of degeneration. He 
wrote: 1 " Although it is pretty well ascertained that in the 
masses of the population the brain ceases to grow after the age 
of nineteen, or even earlier, it is by no means so with university 
students." Venn wrote: 2 "Comparing the 'head volumes' of 
the students, two facts claim notice, viz., first, that the heads of 
the high honor men are distinctly larger than those of the pass 
men; and second, that the heads of all alike continue to grow for 
some years after the age of nineteen." Consequently the meas- 
urements so carefully made by Venn are exceedingly significant. 

Has Evolution Ceased? — It is very interesting to consider 
whether specialization has reached the limit in the case of man's 
brain and psychic life. John Fiske wrote, 3 as a chapter heading, 
these striking words: "On the earth there will never be a 
higher creature than man." Drummond in his chapter on the 
arrest of the body, 4 commenting upon the statement, says: "It 
is a daring prophecy, but every probability of science attests 
the likelihood of its fulfilment. The goal looked forward to 
from the beginning of time has been attained. Nature has 
succeeded in making a man; she can go no further; organic 
evolution has done its work." 

While acknowledging that psychical evolution is the type of 
all further human progress, yet we should not regard present 
physical development as by any means complete, nor the present 
type of man as perfect. "Man is the tadpole of what he is to 
be," the favorite phrase of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, is much nearer 
the truth. Struggle for still higher ideals than have ever been 
held will tend to develop a higher type of psychic life than any 
yet realized; and as mental life in all its phases of development 
has been paralleled by nervous and muscular development and 
has rendered the psychical evolution possible, may we not expect 
still higher development of both physical and mental life ? Be- 
cause of psycho-physical parallelism it must follow that if further 

1 Nature, 41: 454. 2 Nature, 41: 452. 

3 Destiny of Man, p. 26. * Ascent 0} Man, p. 99. 



62 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

progress in mental life is to be attained in any direction, there 
must be corresponding structural adaptation of the physical 
organism. 

For example, in order to attain a higher appreciation of music, 
it is undoubtedly true that a more delicate auditory organism 
must be evolved. And with a constantly heightening ideal of 
music and a struggle to cultivate better understanding and 
appreciation this conscious selection must have as one effect — 
that of a more highly developed organism. Similarly more 
sensitive visual organs may be developed which would be sensi- 
tive to tints and colors and fine shades of difference not now 
possible to the imperfect eye. The sense organs of touch may 
become so delicate that grades of workmanship and professional 
skill in the artist, the physician, etc., hitherto undreamed of, may 
be made possible. Of course, some organs and powers may 
degenerate, but indefinite variation and change are not only 
possible but extremely probable. Within historic times, even 
in a few generations, I am pleased to believe, permanent modifi- 
cations have taken place in man's brain and sense organs through 
cultivation of powers present and in response to the struggle for 
the attainment of higher ideals. We do not marvel when the 
breeder produces complete transformation through selection and 
the emphasis of desirable qualities. New breeds of horses and 
dogs, unrecognizable as related to the old through outward ap- 
pearance, and vastly superior in mental qualities, are secured in 
a few generations. 

"Shall it stop here? Shall it not be carried forward on a 
higher plane by the conscious effort of man ? Is not all civiliza- 
tion, all culture, all education a voluntary process of cephaliza- 
tion ? Here, also, there must prevail the same law of progressive 
domination of the higher over the lower, of the distinctively 
human over the animal, of mind over body; and in the mind, 
of the higher faculties over the lower, the reflective over the per- 
ceptive, and of the moral character over all. In all your culture 
be sure that you strive to follow this law of evolution." * 

1 Le Conte, Comparative Physiology and Morphology o) Animals, p. 83. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 

Progressive Development of the Individual. — All individuals 
begin life as a single cell and it is only after gradual differentia- 
tion and specialization that complex animal forms are evolved. 
Wallace remarks apropos of this: "The progressive develop- 
ment of any vertebrate from the ovum or minute embryonic 
egg affords one of the most marvellous chapters in natural his- 
tory. We see the contents of the ovum undergoing numerous 
definite changes; its interior dividing and subdividing till it 
consists of a mass of cells; then a groove appears marking out 
the median line or vertebral column of the future animal, and 
thereafter are slowly developed the various essential organs of 
the body." * Huxley remarks in the same connection after 
describing the progressive changes in the canine embryo: "The 
history of the development of any other vertebrate animal, 
lizard, snake, frog, or fish, tells the same story. There is always 
to begin with an egg having the same essential structure as that 
of the dog : — the yolk of the egg undergoes division or segmenta- 
tion, as it is called, the ultimate products of that segmentation 
constitute the building materials for the body of the young ani- 
mal, and this is built up round a primitive groove, in the floor 
of which a notochord is developed. Furthermore, there is a 
period in which the young of all these animals resemble one 
another, not merely in outward form, but in all essentials of 
structure, so closely that the differences between them are in- 
considerable, while in their subsequent course they diverge more 
and more widely from one another. And it is a general law that 
the more closely any animals resemble one another in adult 

1 Darwinism, p. 448. 
63 



64 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

structure, the longer and more intimately do their embryos 
resemble one another: so that, for example, the embryos of a 
snake and of a lizard remain like one another longer than do 
those of a snake and of a bird; and the embryos of a dog and 
of a cat remain like one another for a far longer period than do 
those of a dog and a bird; or of a dog and an opossum; or even 
those of a dog and a monkey." * 

Resemblances of Embryos to Lower Adult Forms. — It has long 
been observed that the embryos of the higher animals at different 
stages resemble somewhat the adult forms of various lower 
species. The more immature the embryo the lower the species 
resembled, and the more mature the embryo the higher the species 
which it approximates. In the case of animals which undergo 
metamorphoses in attaining adult life the immature stages so 
completely resemble other adult forms that they are frequently 
regarded as another species. For example, moths and butter- 
flies in the larval stage would naturally be classed with the worms 
by the unscientific. The young of frogs and toads, the tadpoles, 
are animals fitted to live in water only, and certainly would be 
classed with fishes if it were not known what subsequent meta- 
morphoses would take place. 

Marshall wrote: "Everyone knows that animals in the earlier 
stages of their existence differ greatly in form, in structure, and 
in habits from the adult condition. A lung-breathing frog, for 
example, commences its life as a gill-breathing tadpole; and a 
butterfly passes its infancy and youth as a caterpillar. It is 
clear that these developmental stages, and the order of their 
occurrence, can be no mere accidents; for all the individuals of 
any particular species of frog, or of butterfly, pass through the 
same series of changes. . . . Each animal is constrained to 
develop along definitely determined lines. . . . The suc- 
cessive stages in its life history are forced on an animal in 
accordance with a law, the determination of which ranks as one 
of the greatest achievements of biological science." 2 

1 Man's Place in Nature, p. 88. 

2 Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 201. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 65 

The Law of Recapitulation. — For a long period during the 
course of development the embryo of a given animal is so similar 
to the embryos of many other animals as to be difficult of dis- 
tinction. It was Agassiz who first pointed out that there is a 
definite resemblance between certain stages in the growth of 
young fish and their fossil representatives. He drew the con- 
clusion that, " it may therefore be considered as a general fact, 
very likely to be more fully illustrated as investigations cover a 
wider ground, that the phases of development of all living animals 
correspond to the order of succession of their extinct represent- 
atives." This resemblance of embryonic stages to the adult 
forms of lower species led to further investigations which re- 
sulted in the belief that these embryonic stages represented an 
ancestral type. The embryonic conditions at various stages not 
only resemble other species, but they actually represent a stage 
of progress at which some ancestors ceased in their development. 
Inasmuch as each complex animal represents a series of succes- 
sive stages of animal life, it is said to recapitulate in its individual 
development the life history of the race. 

The law of recapitulation first hinted at by Agassiz, later more 
directly by Von Baer, but which was first definitely formulated 
by Fritz Miiller and frequently referred to as Von Baer's law, 
briefly stated is as follows: The individual in its development 
passes through or recapitulates the various stages which the 
race has passed through in reaching the stage represented by the 
individual. Most of the facts that support this theory have 
been derived from biology and embryology. Paleontologists 
have found extinct animal series representing many stages of 
the developing embryos of present-day animals. The fossil re- 
mains represent, of course, adult forms, and hence it is thought 
that these represent racial stages of the ancestors. Therefore 
it is said that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. 

Marshall states that, "The doctrine of Descent, or of Evolu- 
tion, teaches us that as individual animals arise, not spontane- 
ously, but by direct descent from pre-existing animals, so also 
it is with species, and with larger groups of animals, and so also 



66 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

has it been for all time; that as the animals of succeeding 
generations are related together, so also are those of successive 
geologic periods; that all animals living or that have lived are 
united together by blood relationship of varying nearness or 
remoteness; and that every animal now in existence has a pedi- 
gree stretching back, not merely for ten or a hundred generations, 
but through all geologic time, since the dawn of life on this globe. 

"The study of Development, in its turn, has revealed to us that 
each animal bears the mark of its ancestry, and is compelled to 
discover its parentage in its own development; that the phases 
through which an animal passes in its progress from the egg 
to the adult are no accidental freaks, no mere matters of develop- 
mental convenience, but represent more or less closely, in more 
or less modified manner, the successive ancestral stages through 
which the present condition has been acquired. Evolution tells 
us that each animal has had a pedigree in the past. Embryology 
reveals to us this ancestry, because every animal in its own devel- 
opment repeats its history, climbs up its own genealogical tree." * 

Rudimentary Organs. — In the animal body are found some 
organs which subserve no function, at least in the adult. Some- 
times they fulfil some function in the embryonic development, 
and again they reach only a rudimentary stage. These vestigial 
organs are the rudiments of structures which once performed 
some useful service in the animal economy. But whenever the 
need ceases the organ tends to disappear, some say through 
disuse, others maintain through natural selection — undoubtedly 
both. At any rate their former need has ceased to exist, because 
of a change of habit or because of different conditions of living, 
and the organs are now dying out. LeConte says: "All 
through the animal kingdom, especially in the more specialized 
forms of mammals, we find rudimentary and often wholly use- 
less organs. These are evidently remnants of once useful 
organs, which have dwindled by disuse, but have not entirely 
disappeared. Examples meet us on every side." 2 

1 Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 201. 

2 Comparative Physiology and Morphology oj Animals, p. 258. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 67 

Darwin years ago pointed out that "organs or parts in this 
strange condition, bearing the plain stamp of inutility, are ex- 
tremely common, or even general, throughout nature. It would 
be impossible to name one of the higher animals in which some 
part or other is not in a rudimentary condition." ] Fcetal whales 
have teeth though when grown they have not a tooth in their 
heads; calves have rudimentary teeth which never cut through 
the gums. Some organs are rudimentary in the sense that they 
do not function, though perfect; that is, they are useless. 
There is a species of salamander {Salamander Atra) which 
lives high up in the mountains, whose young are full-formed 
at birth, as are those of all mammals; yet during fcetal life 
they possess exquisitely feathered gills and will swim about in 
water, if they are secured during fcetal life. During adult 
life they never live in water. Lewes remarks that "obviously 
this aquatic organization has no reference to the future life of 
the animal, nor has it any adaptation to its embryonic condi- 
tion; it has solely reference to ancestral adaptations; it repeats 
a phase in the development of its progenitors." 2 

In snakes one lobe of the lungs is rudimentary. In birds' 
wings the tip of the bony structure is like a rudimentary digit; 
the smaller hind toe of birds is a similar case. In some species, 
like the ostrich, the whole wing is rudimentary. The eyes of 
blind fishes and other cave animals are rudiments proclaiming 
a former power which is now inoperative. The dew-claws of 
cattle and hogs, the splint-bone of horses, are rudimentary toes, 
and tell the story of their five toes once necessary to existence. 
Whales now have no hair, but rudiments found in the skin show 
that their ancestors were hairy. They now have no legs, but the 
vestigial legs reveal their four-legged ancestry. Plants have 
degenerate petals and spines that illustrate the same features. 
There are also many rudimentary psychic traits shown by 
animals. Many dogs turn around several times before lying 
down to sleep at night. Cats tormentingly play with their prey 

1 Origin of Species, p. 467. 

2 Darwin's Origin oj Species, p. 468. 



68 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

after it is captured, and domestic dogs still bury food — though 
it is no longer necessary to do so. 

We find amphibians in all stages of transition, some having 
only just begun to emerge, while in others the transition is so 
nearly complete that their former identity is scarcely discernible. 
In embryonic or tadpole life, all amphibians possess gills for 
extracting oxygen from the water, and organs for water locomo- 
tion. It is only when they reach an adult stage that they pos- 
sess organs which equip them for terrestrial existence. 

Retrogressions. — But there have been many retrogressions in 
the process. Many animals after rising step by step above the 
fishes, and through the back-boned animals until they reached 
a rank only a little below the pinnacle, for some reason have 
gone back to the sea. The French song says, "On revient 
toujour s a ses premiers amours." Among those that have com- 
pletely forsaken the land and assumed such fish-like characters 
as almost to elude detection are the whales, porpoises, and 
dolphins. Their fish-like forms and marine habits seem to indi- 
cate affinities with the fishes. But their internal structures, 
breathing, and mode of reproduction and suckling the young, 
proclaim their mammalian kinship. They resemble quadrupeds 
in their internal structure and in some of their appetites and 
affections. Like quadrupeds they have lungs, a midriff, a 
stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, and bladder. The organs of 
generation and the heart are quadrupedal in structure. "The 
rudimentary teeth of the whale-bone whales, which never come 
into use, are final links in the chain of evidence," says Professor 
Oskar Schmidt, 1 "that the whale-bone whales are the last mem- 
bers of a transformed group which commenced with animals 
with four toes and numerous teeth, and which by the gradual 
diminution of the dentition, have become whale-bone whales." 
The fins still retain the bones of the shoulder, fore-arm, wrist, 
and fingers, though they are all enclosed in a sac and could 
render no service except in swimming. The head is, also, 
mammalian save in shape, which has become modified and fish- 

1 The Mammalia, p. 248. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 69 

shaped for easier propulsion in the water. |The mammalian 
skull, with all the bones in their proper anatomical relations to 
one another, is still preserved. Professor Schmidt says, 1 in 
regard to the dolphin, that " hind limbs like those of the Sirenians 
have disappeared externally without leaving a trace of their 
former existence; the rudimentary pelvic bones that are con- 
cealed in the flesh — sometimes with the last remnant of the thigh 
bone, very rarely with the shank, — bear witness, however, to 
their having possessed ancestors with four legs." 

Transformations in Process. — There are several species of 
animals that exhibit the transformation still in process. Such, 
for example, is the polar bear, which is about half aquatic. 
This animal really gave us the first hint that some animals may 
revert to water life. His body, much longer and more" flexible 
than that of common bears, enables him to adapt himself to 
locomotion in water. His feet have become decidedly broad, 
his head pointed and his ears small, thus enabling him to propel 
himself through his aqueous habitat with ease. Other bears hug 
their prey, while this one uses teeth and claws entirely. The 
soles of his feet have become provided with long hair, which 
protects against slipping on the ice. He has largely lost his 
hibernating habits and fishes and hunts throughout the winter. 
Seals show by the shape of their skull, dentition, and mode of life 
that they are carnivorous animals that have adapted themselves 
to a life in water. Their limbs are metamorphosed into fin-like 
rudders. Instead of perfect fish-like tails, they have two legs 
flattened together, with nails on the toes. These are obvious 
superfluities, but remain as an inheritance from ancestors to 
which they once were of use. They have now become modified 
by the present fish-like habits of the animal. 

Human Recapitulation. — The various stages of man's physical 
development resemble so closely many existing and extinct forms 
of lower animal life that apparently we need but to apply the 
general law of evolution to say that the individual human being 
recapitulates in a general way the historical stages of the dc 

1 Op. cit., p. 250. 



70 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

velopment of the race. Man, like all other animals, begins life 
as a unicellular organism. Many stages, moreover, correspond 
very closely to animals living in an aqueous medium. 

The essential stages of human development resemble those 
of other animals. The main difference is that the human 
embryo goes away beyond all others in its unfoldment. But so 
close are the resemblances among the earlier embryonic stages 
that the differences are almost unrecognizable. Some one has 
said that for some time no one would be able to tell whether a 
given embryo might turn out a frog or a philosopher. Romanes 
says that when man's "animality becomes established, he ex- 
hibits the fundamental anatomical qualities which characterize 
such lowly animals as polyps and jelly-fish. And even when he 
is marked off as a vertebrate, it cannot be said whether he is to 
be a fish, a reptile, a bird, or a beast. Later on it becomes evi- 
dent that he is to be a mammal, but not till later still can it 
be said to which order of mammals he belongs." x 

Evidences. — There are several lines of evidence which give 
such abundant proofs of man's more humble ancestry that 
little doubt of it remains in the minds of scientists. Chief 
among these on the physical side are the proofs afforded by 
embryology, morphology, paleontology, and pathology. 

Drummond wrote: 2 "The human form does not begin as a 
human form. It begins as an animal; and at first, and for a 
long time, there is nothing wearing the remotest semblance of 
humanity. What meets the eye is a vast procession of lower 
forms of life, a succession of strange inhuman creatures emerging 
from a crowd of still stranger and still more inhuman creatures; 
and it is only after a prolonged and unrecognizable series of 
metamorphoses that they culminate in some faint likeness of 
him who is one of the newest yet one of the oldest of created 
things." 

So close is the resemblance among the embryos of different 
classes of animals that Von Baer himself was unable to distin- 

1 Darwin and After Darwin, I, 119. 

2 The Ascent 0} Man, p. 66. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 71 

guish unlabelled specimens of the embryos of a reptile, a fish, and 
a mammal in their early stages of development. Professor His, 
one of the most expert of embryologists, on viewing a slightly 
abnormal embryo, known to be a human one, "asserted roundly 
that Krause (who had shown it) must have made a mistake, and 
that his specimen was a chick embryo and not a human one at 
all." x 

Huxley wrote: 2 "Without question, the mode of origin and 
the early stages of the development of man are identical with 
those of the animals immediately below him in the scale. . . . 
Indeed it is very long before the body of the young human being 
can be readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but, 
at a tolerably early period the two become distinguishable by 
the different forms of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allan- 
tois. . . . But exactly in those respects in which the developing 
man differs from the dog, he resembles the ape. ... So that it 
is only quite in the later stages of development that the young 
human being presents marked differences from the young ape, 
while the latter departs as much from the dog in its development 
as the man does. Startling as this last assertion may appear to 
be, it is demonstrably true, and it alone appears to me sufficient 
to place beyond all doubt the structural unity of man with the 
rest of the animal world, and more particularly and closely with 
the apes." 

Wallace has added in commenting upon the above: "A few 
of the curious details in which man passes through stages com- 
mon to the lower animals may be mentioned. At one stage 
[of human embryonic growth] the os coccyx projects like a true 
tail, extending considerably beyond the rudimentary legs. In 
the seventh month the convolutions of the brain resemble those 
of an adult baboon. The great toe, so characteristic of man, 
forming the fulcrum which most assists him in standing erect, 
in an early stage of the embryo is much shorter than the other 
toes, and instead of being parallel with them, projects at an 

1 Marshall, Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 250. 
8 Man's Place in Nature, p. 89. 



72 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



angle from the side of the foot, thus corresponding with its 
permanent condition in the quadrumana. Numerous other ex- 
amples might be quoted, all illustrating the same general law." x 
Recapitulation in the Nervous System. — The development of 
the central nervous system at different stages of the human 




Fig. 23. — Sub-fish-like stage. 




Fig. 24. — Fish-like stage. 




Fig. 25. — Reptilian-like stage. 




Fig. 26. — Bird-like stage. 




Fig. 27. — Mammalian-like stage. 




Fig. 28 — Human stage. 



PLATE SHOWING SUCCESSIVE STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT 

OF THE HUMAN BRAIN. (AFTER LECONTE.) 

In Figs. 23-28 : th, thalamus ; ol, optic lobe ; m, medulla ; cr, cerebrum ; cb, cerebellum. 

embryo exhibits close homologies to those in some of the great 
groups of lower animals. Man's brain passes through a series 
of stages of interesting complexity. These stages are only 
temporary in the human embryo, while they represent the maxi- 
mum development of the group corresponding to such stage. 

1 Darwinism, p. 449. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 73 

Professor H. DeVarigny says: "One may easily detect in the 
evolution of the human brain a state corresponding to that of the 
brain of fishes; but while the fishes permanently retain this brain 
structure, an advance occurs in man, and the brain acquires 
characters of the reptilian encephalon; later on it progresses 
again, and acquires bird characteristics, and finally it acquires 
those characters which are peculiar to mankind. Here again 
ontogeny demonstrates phylogeny." * The accompanying dia- 
grams (Figs. 23 to 28) show the successive stages of growth 
through which the human brain passes. No other system of 
organs illustrates the idea of recapitulation quite so well. 

Vestigial Structures in Man.— In the human body there are 
numerous obsolescent organs, which persevere in form only, 
and give unequivocal evidence of former ancestry. There are 
in all upward of one hundred and thirty that have been dis- 
covered. The vermiform appendix is one of the best-known. 
It is relatively better developed at birth than later. The mus- 
cles by means of which the external ear is moved are demonstra- 
ble only in exceptionally atavistic individuals. The panicules 
carnosis, or muscles by means of which animals move the skin, 
still exhibit vestiges of former function in man. Club-feet are 
said to be atavistic reminiscences of remote ancestors, meaning 
no more nor less than baboon feet. 

"Prominent among these vestigial structures, as they are 
called, are those which smack of the sea. If embryology is any 
guide to the past, nothing is more certain than that the ancient 
progenitors of man once lived an aquatic life. At one time there 
was nothing else in the world but water-life; all the land animals 
are late inventions." After emerging from the annelide and 
molluscan stages, what was to become man remained in the 
water until evolution had produced a fish-like stage; "after an 
amphibian interlude he finally left" the watery domain, but 
"many ancient and fish-like characters remained in his body to 
tell the tale." 2 

1 DeVarigny, Experimental Evolution, p. 35. 

2 Drummond, The Ascent of Man, p. 83. 



74 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Dr. Brooks asserts 1 that: "We may feel sure even in the 
absence of sufficient evidence to trace their direct paths, that all 
the great groups of metazoa ran back to minute pelagic ancestry." 

One typical vestigial structure which dates back to sea an- 
cestry is the plica semi-lunar is, or the remnants of the nictitating 
membrane of fishes. It is a semi-transparent, curtain-like mem- 
brane formed on the inner side of the eyes as a vertical fold of 
the conjunctiva, which apparently is of great utility in sweeping 
across the eye to cleanse it. It is very common among birds, 
some fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and most vertebrates. In 
man there is only a small fold or curtain draped across one side 
of the eye, and Romanes states that it is only rudimentary in all 
animals above fishes. 

The most unequivocal rudimentary structures which give 
indication of water ancestry are the visceral clefts or gill-clefts 
in the neck-region. These were the first discovered vestigial 
structures to indicate the probable line of descent. These 
structures are first seen in the amphioxus, the connecting link 
between invertebrates and vertebrates. "In all water-inhabiting 
Vertebrates which breathe by means of gills, the thin epithelial 
closing plates break through between the visceral arches, and 
indeed in the same sequence as that in which they arose. Cur- 
rents of water, therefore, can now pass from the outside through 
the open clefts into the cavity of the alimentary canal and be 
employed for respiration, since they flow over the surface of the 
mucous membrane. There is now developed in the mucous 
membranes, upon both sides of the visceral clefts, a superficial, 
close network of blood-capillaries, the contents of which effect 
an exchange of gases with the passing water. . . . Likewise in 
the case of the higher (amniotic) Vertebrates, both inner and 
outer visceral furrows, together with the visceral arches separat- 
ing them, are . . . formed; but here they are never developed 
into an actually functioning respiratory apparatus; they belong 
consequently in the category of rudimentary organs. Upon the 
mucous membrane arise no branchial leaflets; indeed the 

1 The Genus Salpa, p. 159. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 75 

formation of open clefts is not always and everywhere achieved, 
since the thin epithelial closing membranes between the separate 
visceral arches are preserved at the bottom of the externally 
visible furrows." 1 

The number of gill-clefts and visceral arches decreases in the 
ascending scale of vertebrate life. In some of the lower species, 
as the selachians, there are seven or eight, while birds, mammals, 
and man possess but four. The number of external openings 
also is found to decrease constantly as we ascend the scale of 
life. In the higher mammals and man they would scarcely be 
known were it not for their detection in the embryonic stage. 
But they are discernible in the chick embryo in the third day of 
incubation, and they may be seen distinctly in the human 
embryo according to His, when the embryo has attained a 
length of three or four millimetres. They begin to become 
obliterated by the fourth week of foetal life. But still, says 
Drummond, 2 "so persistent are these characters (the gill-slits) 
that children are known to have been born with them not only 
externally visible — which is a common occurrence — but open 
through and through, so that fluids taken in at the mouth could 
pass through and trickle out at the neck. . . . Dr. Sutton has 
recently met with actual cases where this has occurred. 3 ... In 
the common cases of children born with these vestiges the old 
gill-slits are represented by small openings in the sides of the 
neck and capable of admitting a thin probe. Sometimes even 
the place where they have been in childhood is marked through- 
out life by small round patches of white skin." Dr. Hertwig 
also mentioned the fact that fistulae, which penetrate from with- 
out inward for variable distances, sometimes even opening into 
the pharyngeal cavity, are to be met with in human beings. 
These are explainable as being still open clefts of the cervical 
sinus. 

The ultimate metamorphosis of the embryonic gill-clefts is 
still a question of much interest. There is little doubt that the 

1 Hertwig-Mark, Text-Book of Embryology, p. 286. 

2 Ascent of Man, p. 86. 3 Sutton, Evolution and Disease, p. 81. 



76 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

thymus, and probably the thyroid gland, are derived from the 
visceral clefts. The thymus is derived, according to Kolliker, 
Born, ajid Rabl, from the third visceral cleft. Some authorities, 
among them DeMeuron and His, differ in minor points, princi- 
pally as to the number of clefts involved, but in the main agree. 
The thymus is found in all animals beginning with the fishes. 
Even in the fishes it is derived from epithelial tracts of the open 
gill-clefts still functionally active. Dohrn holds that the thyroid 
gland is the remnant of ancient gill-clefts of the vertebrates. 
Although this is disputed by Hertwig, he still admits that "It 
appears to be an organ of very ancient origin, which shows rela- 
tionship to the hypobranchial furrow of Amphioxus and the 
Tunicates." ! It at any rate gives strong evidence of the close 
relationship, being developed "from an unpaired and a paired 
evagination of the pharyngeal epithelium," and in the region 
of the former visceral clefts, and by good authorities claimed to 
be developed from them. The so-called accessory thyroid gland 
is conceded by all to have thus arisen. The unpaired funda- 
ments which contribute toward the thyroid are not wanting in a 
single class of vertebrates. Dohrn makes several bolder hypoth- 
eses concerning the metamorphosed products of the embryonic 
clefts. He maintains, " (i) that the mouth has arisen by the 
fusion of a pair of visceral clefts, (2) that the olfactory organs are 
to be referred to the metamorphosis of another pair of clefts — a 
view which is also shared by M. Marshall and several others — 
(3) that a disappearance of gill-clefts on the region of the sockets 
of the eye is to be assumed, and that the eye-muscles are to be 
interpreted as remnants of gill-muscles." 2 Hertwig, however, 
dissents from some of these views. But most embryologists are 
agreed that the middle and outer ear are derived from the upper 
portion of the first visceral cleft and its surroundings. In fishes 
there is no external auditory apparatus, and these organs, which 
in man develop into an ear, subserve another purpose. The 
Eustachian tube represents a partial closure of an original cleft; 

1 Hertwig-Mark, Text-book of Embryology, p. 317. 

2 Hertwig-Mark, op. cit., p. 288. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 77 

the tympanic membrane is developed from the closing plate of 
the first vfse^fal cleft and surrounding portions of the arches; 
and the external ear is derived from the ridge-like margins of the 
first and second visceral arches. Drummond says: 1 "Ears 
are actually sometimes found bursting out in human beings half- 
way down the neck in the exact position — namely, along the line 
of the anterior border of the sterno-mastoid muscle — which the 
gill-slits would occupy if they still persisted. In some families, 
where the tendency to retain these special structures is strong, 
one member sometimes illustrates the abnormality by possessing 
the clefts alone, another has a cervical ear, while a third has both 
a cleft and a neck-ear — all these, of course, in addition to the 
ordinary ears." 

Marshall asserted that "Rudimentary organs are extremely 
common, especially among the higher groups of animals, and 
their presence and significance are now well understood. Man 
himself affords numerous and excellent examples, not merely 
in his bodily structure, but by his speech, dress, and customs. 
For the silent letter b in the word "doubt," the g in "reign," or 
the w in "answer," or the buttons on his elastic-side boots, are 
as true examples of rudiments, unintelligible but for their past 
history, as are the ear muscles he possesses, but cannot use; 
or the gill-clefts, which are functional in fishes and tadpoles, 
and are present, though useless, in the embryos of all higher 
vertebrates; which in their early stages the hare and tortoise 
alike possess, and which are shared with them by cats and by 
kings." 2 

Survival Movements. — An exceedingly interesting and im- 
portant study, and one which sheds much light upon the theory 
of recapitulation, was carried out by Dr. Alfred A. Mumford 
of England. 3 He noticed the peculiar paddling or swimming 
movements which a babe only a few days old made when 
placed face downward with only hands and feet touching the 
floor, its head and abdomen being supported by a hand placed 

1 Ascent of Man, p. 89. 

1 Marshall, Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 209. 3 Brain, 1897. 



78 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

under each. Being struck with the great similarity of these 
movements to those made in propulsion through a watery 
medium, he began a systematic study of infants' movements. 
Besides confirming and extending many of the recent observa- 
tions concerning an anthropoid relationship, he makes state- 
ments which are much more far-reaching. He has noticed that 
the limbs at birth and during the first few weeks of infancy tend 
to assume the primitive developmental position, viz., "folded 
across the chest, thumb toward the head and with the palm 
toward the thorax; but more often the palm is away from the 
chest-wall and is directed anteriorly by means of extreme 
pronation, the dorsum of the hand often lying on or near the 
shoulder, sometimes an inch or two outside. As the child 
wakes up, the elbows begin to open out and the palm is pushed 
outward in a way that would be useful in locomotion, especially 
in a fluid medium. In fact, it is the movement of the paddle." 
These movements are described as slowly rhythmical movements 
of flexion and extension such as one sees among animals in an 
aquarium. They occur often in series of three at a time during 
a quarter of a minute, followed by alternating pauses. These 
are interpreted as vestigial movements of a former amphibian 
existence, which were of fundamental importance before fore- 
limbs developed. This is supplanted by the shape of the hand, 
which is one of the most highly developed of bodily organs in 
function but in some respects least modified of all the skeleton. 
"In shape and bones it is more like the primitive amphibian 
paddle than is the limb of any other mammal." 

Other Infant Atavisms. — The spinal column of the child ex- 
hibits only two curves at birth and does not represent a truly 
human vertebral column. "When the child is born, the curva- 
ture of its spine in the dorso-lumbar region approximates to 
that of an ordinary quadruped in which there is no lumbar 
convexity, so that the spine in that region presents one continuous 
curve concave forward. For some time after birth the infant 
retains the quadrupedal character of the spinal curve in the 
dorso-lumbar region, and, as it acquires nervous and muscular 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 79 

power and capability of independent movement, its mode of 
progression in the early months by creeping on hands and knees 
approximates to that of the quadruped. It is only after it has 
attained the age of from a year to sixteen months that it can erect 
its trunk, completely extend the hip and knee joints, and draw 
the leg into line with the thigh, so as to form a column of support, 
which enables it to stand on two feet." . . . The human char- 
acteristics " are acquired after birth, and are not imprinted on the 
human spine from the beginning, though the capability of ac- 
quiring them at the proper time is a fundamental attribute of 
the human organism." * 

Grasping Movements. — It is a noteworthy fact that in early 
infancy the child in grasping an object in the hand does not clasp 
it with the thumb opposed to the fingers. The same is true of 
the apes. The thumb of monkeys is of comparatively little use 
and some species lack the muscle which gives control. Women, 
who are more primitive than men, in doubling their fists, fre- 
quently do not clinch the thumb over the fingers. Children 
double the fists similarly. 

Dr. Louis A. Robinson made an instructive study of the in- 
stinctive power which new-born infants display in grasping a 
ringer or a stick placed in their fingers. So tightly did the babes 
grasp objects that he tested them to discover their power of 
grip and strength of arm. In over sixty cases tested within an 
hour after birth he found that with two exceptions they could 
sustain their whole weight for at least ten seconds, and several 
held on for nearly a minute. At four days of age when strength 
had increased, nearly all could sustain their weight for a minute. 
At two weeks several hung for two minutes, and at three weeks 
one held on for two minutes and thirty-five seconds. This 
function dies out soon, either from lack of exercise or because of 
the natural decadence of the instinct — doubtless both. 

Photographs of infants show that "Invariably the thighs are 
bent nearly at right angles to the body, and in no case did the 
lower limbs hang down and take the attitude of the erect posi- 

1 Sir Wm. Turner, Nature, vol. 56, p. 427. 



So PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tion. 1 This attitude and the disproportionately large develop- 
ment of the arms," Robinson says, "compared with the legs, give 
the photographs a striking resemblance to a well-known picture 
of the celebrated chimpanzee 'Sally' at the Zoological Gardens. 
. . . The young orangs and chimpanzees that they have had at 
the Zoological Gardens slept with the body semi-prone and with 
the limbs, or all except one arm, which was used as a pillow, 
curled under them. This is exactly the position voluntarily 
adopted by eighty per cent, of children between ten and twenty 
months old, which I have had opportunities of watching. I was 
told by the attendants at the Zoological Gardens that no ape 
will sleep flat on his back, as adult man often does." 

Dr. Robinson also noted the probably atavistic tendencies of 
children in the peculiar sleeping postures which they often 
select when unrestricted by clothing. They frequently sleep 
curled up, and often face downward, with the limbs flexed 
under them. Savages not infrequently adopt the same sleeping 
positions. These positions resemble those adopted by the simian 
apes. Robinson further recites that^'^rorJabTy"lhe readiness 
with which infants play at ' bopeep ' and peer round the edge of 
a cradle curtain, and then suddenly draw back into hiding, is 
traceable to a much earlier ancestor. Here we see the remains 
of a habit common to nearly all arboreal animals, and the 
cradle curtain, or chair, or what not, is merely a substitute for 
a part of the trunk of a tree behind which the body is supposed 
to be hidden, while the eyes, and as little else as possible, are 
exposed for a moment to scrutinize a possible enemy and then 
quickly withdrawn." 

Psychic Reverberations. — Genetic psychology is tracing out 
the gradual growth of mental powers and processes; philology 
shows us that many forms of speech become useless, are dropped 
off, and new ones are coined to meet new conditions; history, 
sociology, and archaeology reveal former social customs and 
relations that are now obsolete, and sociology points out new 

1 "Darwinism in the Nursery," Nineteenth Century, 1891, vol. 30, pp. 831- 
842. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 81 

customs and laws in the making. We cannot hope to unravel 
all of man's mental history with any such demonstrable certainty 
as we can reconstruct his past physical history. Mental states 
are the most plastic, variable, fleeting, and the least preservable 
entities, and although we must logically conclude that the record 
of our psychoses is never effaced, yet the majority become so 
intricately blended and interwoven with other more recent ac- 
quisitions that no psychology will ever be able to reconstruct the 
entire race history. Only the most oft-repeated and most far- 
reaching psychic acts leave traceable evidences. 

But just as all psychic vestiges are less evident than physical, 
so rudimentary psychic phenomena are less capable of proof 
than vestigial physical structures. There is, however, unques- 
tioned evidence of numerous rudimentary psychic traits, and 
many others which though not capable of rigorous demonstra- 
tion, give strong evidence of their origin. Only the general 
faculty or power is transmitted and not particular forms of 
knowledge. Nature provides the potentiality for reactions, nurt- 
ure largely determines what these shall be. Moreover, em- 
bryonic life while furnishing the main clews to physical recapitu- 
lation, gives meagre evidence of any corresponding mental 
retracement. Of prenatal psychoses we know little. The only 
evidences are the simplest muscular reactions to mechanical and 
thermal stimuli. Thus while the physical retracement from the 
lowest unicellular structure to the distinctly human form has 
been accomplished and made evident during prenatal existence, 
there is no evidence of any mentality above the purely vegetative 
reactions such as might be observed in the lower forms of animal 
life. Again, when mental life is launched at birth it is of the 
distinctly human type. 

Traces of peculiar manifestations of the minds of our remote 
ancestors are to be met with in " the present reactions of childish 
and adolescent souls, or of specially sensitized geniuses or neu- 
rotics." There are also times in the life of the normal individual 
when the control maintained by the higher and more recently 
acquired centres is apparently suspended and the lower and 



/ 



82 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

older centres there given full sway seem to step in and the result- 
ing psychical phenomena present traces of long-past activities. 
Such conditions are evidenced in sleep and dreams. Idiots pre- 
sent childish and even animal mentality, showing that the higher 
centres have failed to function. Instead of evincing rudimentary 
psychic phenomena in the true sense, they are cases of arrested 
development. Their lives are made up of those activities that 
are common to animals and humanity in its infancy. Again, 
certain modes of thought crop out in the form of omens, super- 
stitions, sayings, proverbs, and signs, to which we ordinarily 
attach no importance, but often hear and repeat. All these 
have a meaning to the psychologist. They are to him vestigial 
or rudimentary organs and suggest use in a remote past. "Few 
things," says Black, "are more suggestive of the strange halts 
and pauses which mentally a people makes than to note how 
superstition springs up in the very midst of modern education." * 
They are to the psychologist what gill-slits are in pathological 
cases of arrested development. Children are very prone to 
superstition, which is also true of savages. 

Inherited Memories. — The range of atavistic psychoses is 
practically unlimited. Admitting memory to be a biological 
fact, we assume that every impression leaves an ineffaceable 
trace, by which we mean that vestiges or predispositions or 
habit-worn paths of association are formed which will, function 
again when properly stimulated. Conservation of impressions 
is a state of the cerebral organism. The effect once produced by 
an impression upon the brain, whether in perception or in a 
higher intellectual act, is fixed and there retained. The re- 
tention of any act in memory, according to James, is an uncon- 
scious state, purely physical, a morphological feature. Accord- 
ing to Ribot, 2 we may assume that persistence of memories "if 
not absolute, is the general rule and that it includes an immense 
majority of cases." This, of course, applies only to the per- 
sistence of memories during the individual's life, but as Dr. Hall 

1 Folk Lore in Medicine, p. 218. 

2 Diseases of Memory, p. 185. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 83 

has pointed out: x "We may fancy, if we like, that on some 
such theory as, e. g., Mach's of hereditary or a form of memory 
by direct continuity of molecular vibration in cells or their ele- 
ments (Weismann's biophors, Wisner's plasomes, deVrie's 
pangens, Nageli's micellae, etc.), or in any less material way," 
these traces or vestiges are continued and may, even though 
apparently forever effaced, reappear in future generations in 
children or pathological cases. Multitudes of impressions, even 
in the individual's existence, may never be recalled, but they 
might be if the proper stimulus occurred, or if more recent 
memory modifications were removed and the older memories, 
as it were, set free. Evidence in support of such a theory is 
furnished by pathological cases. Events long since apparently 
forgotten often reappear in disease. This is accounted -for by 
the destruction of the more recent and higher centres. Accord- 
ing to Ribot, the law of regression is that a progressive dissolu- 
tion of the memory proceeds from the least-organized to the best- 
organized, from the new to the old. In physiological terms, 
degeneration first affects what has been most recently formed, 
because it has not been repeated so often in experience. Hence, 
may not such cases give us glimpses of the remote psychic past, 
even of the paleopsychic age ? 

Short Circuits. — A consideration of the correspondence be- 
tween ontogeny and phylogeny shows that nature has short- 
circuited many processes. Each individual no longer retraces 
the entire, long, circuitous route traversed by his ancestors. 
Not only have many steps been omitted but many improvements 
have been devised. Just as the palace-car has superseded the 
ox-cart, many organs and functions, both physical and mental, 
have been evolved to meet the exigencies of modern life. Simi- 
larly the individual starts life with primitive, relatively undiffer- 
entiated and unspecialized organs; but the swim-bladders give 
way to lungs, the one-chambered heart becomes quadruple, the 
notochord disappears and the spinal column develops with its 
wonderful arrangement for protecting the still more wonderful 

1 American Journal oj Psychology, 8, 173. 



84 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

brain. In the course of climbing up its own genealogical tree, 
the human being leaves behind perhaps thousands of structures 
which were necessary to particular stages of existence but which 
become excised or functionally obsolete as the higher stages are 
entered. Some hundred and thirty of these vestigial structures 
have been discovered in man's body. 

To preserve all useless structures would be a waste of energy 
and material, and nature is never prodigal. The laws of use and 
disuse are ever operative, causing the development of some 
characteristics and the atrophy and elimination of others. As 
soon as structures lose their functions they tend gradually to 
disappear. If detrimental they are the sooner dropped off. 
The vestigial or obsolescent structures which come regularly 
under our notice in any class of individuals are undoubtedly 
those which subserve some unknown purpose during embryonic 
life, or they are such as have only recently ceased to function. 
Those that appear occasionally, but are absent in the normal 
individuals, are probably the reverberations of long-since 
abandoned organs. They have become reawakened through 
stimulations that have called forth functions similar to those 
possessed by the organs in question, or they may belong to 
arrested development. To this class many pathological freaks 
and abnormalities may undoubtedly be referred. Romanes 
says that "the foreshortening of developmental history which 
takes place in the individual lifetime may be expected to take 
place, not only in the way of condensation, but also in the way 
of excision. Many pages of ancestral history may be recapitu- 
lated in the paragraphs of embryonic development, while others 
may not be so much as mentioned." 

It is worthy of further note also that many of the preceding 
stages in a given line of existence have never been discovered by 
embryology. It was only through paleontology, which gathered 
up the fossil remains, arranged them in series, and then spelled 
out the line of ascent, that they were discovered. By a process of 
reasoning it was then determined that probably the same general 
story could be traced in the embryo. Many of the characters 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 85 

found analogies in the embryos, but still a great many have 
never been found and it should not be expected that they will 
be found. No human embryo has been found that could be 
called a fish, but in all human embryos there are characteristics 
which are very similar to those possessed by a fish. But the 
real fish has in addition many more, which are peculiar to its 
species alone. So also at the fish-like stage the human embryo 
has characteristics and potentialities (hidden, it may be) all its 
own. The courses of development of the fish and man may 
have been, probably were, very similar up to a certain point, and 
then they diverged, each adding and eliminating such as were 
necessary for its own advancement. Thus animals that had origi- 
nally the same progenitors may have become widely divergent, 
so much so that even their embryological features in their higher 
stages are entirely different. Though man starts life as a uni- 
cellular organism, there is no time when this organism is an 
amoeba or any other known animal. Though it may so closely 
resemble an amoeba as to be indistinguishable from one, yet we 
must admit that it possesses differences, dynamic relations, prob- 
ably morphological differences if we had power to discern them, 
which mark it off from everything else. 

Recapitulation Incomplete. — The parallelism is inexact, i. e., 
recapitulation is not perfect. Although the animal may have 
passed through stages which have been demonstrated by paleon- 
tology, the exact parallelism cannot be detected by embryology, 
showing that some stages have dropped out and others been 
added. Cope says: "It is nevertheless true that the records 
brought to light by embryologists are very imperfect, and have 
to be carefully interpreted in order to furnish reliable evidence 
as to the phylogeny of the species examined. An illustration 
of this is the fact that the species characters appear in many 
embryos before those which define the order or the family, 
although it is certain that the latter appeared first in the order of 
time. Most of the important conclusions as to the phylogeny of 
Vertebrata demonstrated by paleontology have never been ob- 
served by embryologists in the records of the species studied by 



86 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

them. Thus I have shown that it is certain that in the amniote 
vertebrates the intercentrum of* the vertebral column has been 
replaced by the centrum; yet no evidence of this fact has been 
observed by an embryologist. If we could study the embryonic 
development of the vertebral column of the Permian or Triassic 
Reptilia, the transition would be observed, but in recent forms 
caenogeny has progressed so far that no trace of the stage where 
the intercentrum existed can be found." * 

Marshall in maintaining that recapitulation is not perfect, 
shows how the embryo of a given stage of development cannot 
possibly represent exactly any other adult stage of existence. 
He says: "A chick embryo of say the fourth day is clearly not 
an animal capable of independent existence, and therefore can- 
not correctly represent any [adult?] ancestral condition, an ob- 
jection which applies to the developmental history of many, per- 
haps of most animals." The record is "neither a complete nor 
a straightforward one. It is indeed a history, but a history of 
which entire chapters are lost, while in those that remain many 
pages are misplaced and others are so blurred as to be illegible; 
words, sentences, or entire paragraphs are omitted, and, worse 
still, alterations or spurious additions have been freely intro- 
duced by later hands, and at times so cunningly as to defy 
detection." 2 

Further, "it is quite impossible that any animal, except per- 
haps in the lowest zoological groups, should repeat all the 
ancestral stages in the history of the race; the limits of time 
available for individual development will not permit this. There 
is a tendency in all animals toward condensation of the ancestral 
history, toward striking a direct path from the egg to the adult. 
This tendency is best marked in the higher, the more complicated 
members of a group — i. e., in those which have a longer and 
more tortuous pedigree." 3 

Hall, who has promulgated the theory of recapitulation more 
than any other writer, says: "It is well to remember that from 

1 Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, p. 209. 

2 Biological Lectures and Addresses, p. 306. * Ibid., p. 311. 



THE THEORY OF RECAPITULATION 87 

a larger biological view, every higher animal is not only composed 
of organs phyletically old and new, but that the order of their 
development may even be changed. Basal and lapidary as is 
the great biogenic law that the individual recapitulates the 
growth stages of his race, the work of Appel, Keibel, Mehnert, 
and many others has demonstrated abundant inversions of it. 
The heart, e. g., in the individual develops before the blood- 
vessels, but this reverses the phylogenetic order. The walls of 
the large vessels develop before the blood-corpuscles, while the 
converse was true in the development of the species." * 

See The American Journal of Psychology, vol. X, Jan., 1899, article on 
"Hydro-Psychoses," for a fuller discussion by the author of the subject of 
recapitulation. 

1 Adolescence, I, p. 55. 



CHAPTER V 
EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 

Education Should Follow Nature. — All the foregoing is ex- 
tremely suggestive for education. It argues for an opportunity 
for the retracement of hereditary endowments and against forc- 
ing nature. It is equally important to argue against keeping 
the child so long in any stage as to produce arrest. Further- 
more, progress is indicated by the fact that present generations 
remain so briefly in the lower types of structures and pass rapidly 
on to higher forms. This shows that nature causes each genera- 
tion to select that w T hich is vital and fundamental from the past 
and then builds upon that. What is proved to be of enduring 
worth is seized upon and made relatively permanent in the race. 
Here is the origin of instincts and the structures necessary to 
their functioning. 

Life means successive change, modification, and selection of 
the most adaptable. Education is life and educative means 
should seek to work in harmony with the original plans of nature. 
At the same time we must not forget that the school and other 
educative means are included in nature. We should cease to 
say "man and nature"; man is the highest product of nature. 
Nature study is incomplete without a study of man. Educative 
means should represent the summum bonum in nature, and like 
more primitive nature, they should select the best for cultivation 
and preservation. Here selection should be conscious and in- 
telligently purposive. 

In addition to merely selecting the best traits and increasing 
their power through wise cultivation, the school should set up 
conscious ideals toward which the efforts of the school in co- 
operation with the individual are to be directed. By this means 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 89 

the school becomes the highest instrument of evolution. By this 
means short circuits are produced and the individual is assisted 
without danger and in the most economical method to higher 
planes. The doctrine* of recapitulation teaches how we may 
conserve the best, eliminate the undesirable, and lead to higher 
and higher development. It is a doctrine of promise and of 
hope! 

Immutability of Mental Laws. — The theory of recapitulation 
re-enforces the idea that natural laws prevail in the mental world 
as in the physical. The popular mind in general has become 
accustomed to regarding physical occurrences as the result of 
natural laws. The idea of chance and superstitions regarding 
supernatural physical events are largely displaced by rational 
ideas of cause and effect. But scientific intelligence has not 
become so general regarding biological facts and changes, and 
still less so concerning mental phenomena. It is highly import- 
ant that growth processes, both physical and psychical, should 
be understood as phenomena which are absolutely conditioned 
by laws as immutable as those governing the falling of a stone. 
It is only since a knowledge of the absolute relation between 
causes and effects has come to be understood and heeded in 
medicine that a science of healing has been made possible. Until 
it was accepted without reservation the physician was not much 
more than the "medicine man" dealing in charms, incantations, 
and sorcery. Until the same rational view comes to obtain con- 
cerning mental phenomena we cannot have a science of educa- 
tion, but must be enthralled by the veriest quackery. 

Springs of Conduct. — Lloyd Morgan 1 wrote: "It must not 
be forgotten that, according to the view here adopted, all our 
instincts and all the more permanent traits of human character 
have been formed under the guidance of natural, individual, and 
social selection; such habits as were for the good of the species, 
crystallizing, or rather organizing, into instincts or permanent 
traits of character; such as were detrimental quietly dying out. 
Or, again, we may say that these instincts and traits of character 

1 Springs of Conduct, p. 260. 



9 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

have been formed under the more general influence of the uni- 
formity of Nature. Let me not be misunderstood here. The 
conception of the uniformity of Nature is one of late develop- 
ment; but the influence of the uniformity of Nature is dominant 
in every mental as it is in every physical process, mind being 
throughout its development moulded in conformity with an 
orderly external sequence of events." 

Morgan seeks to trace the origin of the impulses which issue 
in our various types of conduct. He also attempts to trace the 
origin of our states of cognition, feeling, and volition. He shows 
conclusively that no act of conduct is simple, self-initiated, and 
complete in itself. It takes the doctrine of recapitulation to 
explain their origin and effects. He writes 1 that, "just as, in 
the adult, impressions of sensation or relation recall faint repre- 
sentations of other similar impressions acquired during child- 
hood, which we call memories, so also, in the child, impressions 
of sensation or relation will recall faint representations of im- 
pressions acquired during the childhood of the race, which we 
may call inherited memories. Innate ideas, and so-called a 
priori truths, are such inherited memories; and though it is 
probable that in the individual they are only developed by im- 
pressions gained ultimately through the senses, just as characters 
written in invisible ink are only developed by the heat of a fire, 
it may be taken as certain that they are not acquired' by the 
individual. But of what, it will now be asked, are these ances- 
trally acquired ideas the memories ? To this question, it seems 
to me, there is but one answer. They are the inherited memories 
of impressions gained proximately or ultimately through the 
medium of sense. . . . And just as innate ideas are to be re- 
garded as the result of ancestral experience transmitted to us by 
inheritance, so, too, are innate emotions and desires the result 
of ancestral experience transmitted to us by inheritance. In the 
one case, as in the other, the individual education of experience 
educes or 'draws' out those products of ancestral acquisition 
which were lying latent in our organization and in our character.'' 

Op. cit., p. 31. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 91 

Recapitulation Not Fatalistic. — This is not to be construed 
as a doctrine of fatalism, at least not in that tabooed philosophical 
sense in which the individual regards himself as a creature of 
fate over which he has no control or guidance. It is here main- 
tained that one's possibilities are largely determined by heredi- 
tary bequests, that nature is more potent than nurture in deter- 
mining capacity, but the environment of the individual and his 
own self-activity largely decide what advantage shall be taken 
of nature. The adult individual almost entirely and the child 
to some degree even determine what the environment shall be. 
The discussions of heredity, instinct, memory, and volition will 
consider this subject much more fully. 

Recapitulation, History, and Prophecy. — The study of recapit- 
ulation is of no small importance in a philosophy of education. 
Though a study of phylogeny does not show that the individual 
recapitulates the whole history of the race, yet it does reveal 
analogies and retracement in the main features. Because of the 
close correspondence between ontogeny and phylogeny, a study 
of racial development helps us to interpret and, as we have seen, 
even to predict individual development. It also helps us to 
understand better the meaning of the many transitory forms and 
psychoses that manifest themselves. 

Recapitulation Suggests Order of Development. — In the dis- 
cussion of instinct, and also memory and heredity, it is shown that 
ancestral traits are reproduced in subsequent generations. It is 
a question of much importance to determine the order in which 
various physical and mental characteristics arise in the individ- 
ual. To adapt instruction and activity to the needs and capaci- 
ties of the growing individual is a problem of prime importance 
to education. Because of great individual variations we cannot 
determine the exact time of the development of any activity, but 
the order on broad lines is quite fixed. For example, we cannot 
tell at what month a given child will learn to talk, but w.e know 
that speech is developed in all children in practically the same 
order. Single isolated words which represent sentences are first 
acquired; nouns are learned before adjectives; prepositions and 



92 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

conjunctions are learned late; the complex sentence is seldom 
used or understood before the child goes to school; walking is 
usually acquired before talking; speech and right-handedness 
develop together. Large muscles develop before finer ones; 
perception and memory are well developed before reasoning; 
feelings develop before emotions; the child is will-less and un- 
moral for a long time after birth, though memory and perception 
are very acute, etc. 

Larval Stages Must Precede Higher. — The normal development 
of each stage of existence is necessary for the unfolding of the 
next stage. It is well known that the tadpole's tail does not drop 
off, but is absorbed in some way during the period of the growth 
of the hind legs. It has been noted that if the tail is cut off the 
frog grows up a malformed individual. Dr. Hall, carrying the 
analogy into all human development, regards it as necessary for 
the child to pass through certain stages of physical and mental 
development which will not persist through life but will be 
moulted after having subserved their purpose. Hence his oft- 
quoted expression: "In education don't cut off the tadpole's 
tail." Sedgwick * lends evidence from his biological studies to 
the same view. He says: "Ancestral stages of structure are 
only retained in so far as they are useful to the free-growing 
organism, i. e., to the larva in its free development. The only 
functionless structures which are preserved in development are 
those which at some time or another have been of use to the 
organism during its development after they have ceased to be 
so to the present adult." 

From this we may learn that just as the beautiful butterfly 
must be preceded by the larva and the pupa, so the mature 
stages of human life develop out of lower and more primitive 
stages. Just as we are certain that the pupa will develop into 
the butterfly if provided with suitable environment, so we may 
rest assured that suitable environment will mature the larval 
mental and moral stages; primitive forms will be moulted and 
the individual will emerge full-fledged, with powers complete 

1 Quarterly Journal Mic. Sci., 1894, 36 : 35. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 93 

as in all others of normal development. On the other hand, 
just as underfeeding may dwarf the developing bee or plant, 
so undernutrition, physical or mental, may produce life-long 
malformations in the human being. 

Preparatory Stages in Child Development. — Normal young 
children are full of animal life, and very little reflective and not 
at all religious. In fact, we may say that ideally their growth 
should be that of a healthy animal. Spirituality will appear 
later if the child has developed a sound physical nature. Chil- 
dren are little savages and this should not alarm us. They will 
emerge from savagery to sedate civilization in due time if we 
simply afford them an opportunity to work their way upward 
as the savage was obliged to do. .Normal children represent the 
very acme of egoism and selfishness. They even resort to lying 
and fighting to obtain their selfish ends. Crotchety people who 
never passed through childhood naturally and who do not under- 
stand through study about epochs of development misinterpret 
the actions of the child and denominate him mean, sinful, 
wicked, and foredoomed. Could they but understand the 
difference between the child and the adult and did they but know 
that egoism properly developed is the only means of altruism, 
they would discipline children with far different measures. They 
ought to know that to repress unduly the child's egoism and his 
instincts of pugnacity would as effectually make a life-long weak- 
ling of him as that to save the caterpillar from struggles to secure 
freedom from the cocoon would forever destroy its chances of 
becoming a butterfly, or that to break the shell for the hatching 
chick would probably cause its death. Could high-school 
teachers only realize that the restlessness, instability, and even 
waywardness, which nervous, fretful teachers so much deplore, 
are the very signs which betoken fulness and abundance of life 
into which pupils are struggling to emerge, they would assume 
a sympathetic, directive attitude instead of the repressive meas- 
ures of the martinet. 

Various undesirable traits often appear in more or less marked 
degrees in children and youth, e. g., teasing and bullying, preda- 



94 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tory traits, fighting, and running away, which cause the unwise 
teacher to give way to despair, thinking that such traits indicate 
an evil future. Could he but know that these are normal traits 
and that there will be a moulting period from which the individual 
will emerge devoid of the lower preparatory characteristics, he 
would have less cause for anxiety and be more able to deal in- 
telligently with given periods. A knowledge of the facts of 
recapitulation should make teachers much more intelligently 
sympathetic with child growth and development. The teacher 
is eager and anxious to impress great truths upon the child 
mind and at the earliest moment. He wishes to make men and 
women immediately of the boys and girls. He is not content 
to wait. But nature has her own way. The teacher cannot 
force growth. Nature abhors precocity. The unintelligent 
teacher becomes discouraged with nature's ways. If he could 
only understand, his discouragement would be dispelled and 
his hopes run high. He would know that what has taken aeons 
to develop will not easily be aborted. The teacher is not even 
permitted to plant the most potent seeds of ability and char- 
acter. Those are hereditary endowments. The teacher's busi- 
ness is to recognize signs of their germination and then to provide 
the best means for their normal unfoldment. To force growth 
produces premature decay; to retard, causes arrest or degenera- 
tion. The main business of the educator during the first few 
years of the child's life is to provide suitable conditions 
for him to come into possession of his rightful hereditary en- 
dowment. 

Maj. J. W. Powell, in describing man's progress, 1 has stated 
the idea as follows: "Every child is born destitute of things 
possessed in manhood, which distinguish him from the lower 
animals. Of all industries he is artless; of all institutions he is 
lawless; of all languages he is speechless; of all philosophies he 
is opinionless; of all reasoning he is thoughtless; but arts, 
institutions, languages, opinions and mentations he acquires as 
the years go by from childhood to manhood. In all those 

1 From Barbarism to Civilization, p. 97. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 95 

respects the new-born babe is hardly the peer of the new-born 
beast; but as the years pass, ever and ever he exhibits his 
superiority in all of the great classes of activities, until the 
distance bynvhich he is separated from the brute is so great that 
his realm of existence is in another kingdom of nature." 

Russell has said: 1 "The human infant is, in truth, much 
more on a par with the lowly marsupials, the kangaroo and 
opossum, and requires for a longer period even than they the 
maternal contact, the warmth and shelter of the mother's arms. 
And not only does man thus begin life at the very bottom of the 
ladder, but he ' crawls to maturity ' at a slower pace by far than 
any of the animal species. Long before he reaches manhood 
most of the brute contemporaries and playmates of his infant 
years will have had their day, and declined into decrepitude or 
died of old age." 

The Child Not a Miniature Adult. — Though human, the child 
possesses at birth and for a long period subsequent many traits, 
physical and psychical, that are so different from those he will 
possess when mature that they might equally well be possessed 
by the lower animals. It was previously noted that during pre- 
natal life for a long time it is difficult to distinguish the embryo 
from those of the lower animals. Even at birth the bodily pro- 
portions are very different from what they will be in adult life. 
The body and arms are ong, the legs are short, the head vastly 
larger in proportion to the rest of the body than it will be later. 
Although the head is very large, the frontal portion is relatively 
undeveloped, resembling the lower races or even the simians. 
If the body possessed the same proportions at maturity as in 
infancy, it would look like a monstrosity. The nervous system 
is very immature at birth. The frontal lobe is not only small, 
but the medullation of the cells is very incomplete and the 
association fibres necessary for relational thinking are almost 
entirely wanting. Not for a month after birth do the associa- 
tion areas of the brain begin to be medullated, and even at 
three months they are relatively unmedullated. 

1 Introduction to Haskell's Child Observations, p. xix. 



96 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Psychically the child is not a miniature adult either. Intel- 
lectually and morally he lives in a realm long ago passed over 
by his parents and teachers. Furthermore they have so com- 
pletely moulted their childhood traits that they would not recog- 
nize themselves if an exact reproduction of their child life could 
be furnished them. The adult is prone to judge the child mind 
from his own adult plane of thought and action. Consequently 
every action of the child is judged by such motives as govern the 
adult. The child, however, lives, moves, and has his being in a 
realm quite apart from that of the adult. If the child is to be 
wisely guided it can only be through a sympathetic understand- 
ing of the given stage of development and its relation to what 
precedes and what follows. 

General Order of Unfoldment. — In a general way, the indi- 
vidual traverses mentally a road similar to that passed over by 
the race. The earliest manifestations of mental life in the 
human infant seem to be mere sensory pleasure-pain reactions 
to stimuli such as are exhibited by low forms of animal life. 
They gradually develop into higher, more discriminative stages, 
the senses become more accurate, the child becomes imitative, 
but still is not strongly reflective, is selfish, uncontrolled, etc. 
Gradually it becomes more imaginative, reflective, volitional, 
social, and ethical. This briefest possible sketch represents in 
a general way the course of racial development as well as indi- 
vidual unfoldment. The order of functioning of the various 
senses in the individual is essentially the same as we find in 
viewing the ascending zoological scale. 

The senses first to awaken in both cases are the tactile and 
chemical senses, i. e., touch, taste, smell, and hunger. These 
are most fundamental in self-preservation. Sight and hearing 
in the phylogenetic series were long in developing and slow 
in attaining perfection. The new-born babe is deaf and blind 
for some time, and these senses are slow in maturing. The 
development of touch as compared with sight and hearing is 
suggestive for education. The child must have abundant op- 
portunity to touch, "feel," and handle things and gain "first- 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 97 

hand" knowledge if he is to awaken normally. Note what the 
blind and deaf can do by touch, if only given an opportunity. 

Ear before Eye in Language. — In race evolution the ear 
became an instrument for language acquisition long before the 
eye. Until long past the Homeric age all language was trans- 
mitted by word of mouth and the ear was the receiving organ. 
Writing and reading are decidedly modern accomplishments. 
Man has only recently found it necessary to view things minutely 
and by artificial light. Consequently the eye is still ill-adjusted 
to the new order of life. A study of the child's eye shows that 
here ontogeny retraces phylogeny. How poorly the babe con- 
trols the finer adjustments and co-ordinations may be seen by 
watching any helpless babe of a few hours or days old. The 
two eyes do not move together and they are very unco-ordinated. 
The child on entering school at six still has difficulty in focusing 
his eyes upon minute objects like fine print. Unfortunately we 
have thought that book study was the very best means of mental 
development. We are learning better and have also learned to 
free the immature eye from over-exertion and to protect it against 
almost certain disability consequent upon its premature use. 
That the ear should be the means of early language acquisition, 
however, we have been very tardy to appreciate. Teachers 
must understand that little children to be taught economically 
and effectively must be taught orally. The child begins to 
read after six or more years of hearing language. For five or 
six years more he cannot and should not read to learn very much, 
but should master the art of learning to read. His period of 
learning to hear is comparatively short, and the time of hearing 
to learn appears very early. These facts should be very signifi- 
cant to every teacher of children. 

Utility as an Incentive to Development. — Psychologists assert 
that the purpose of sensation is to stimulate action; that every 
sensation tends to awaken its appropriate response. A study 
of lower forms of life and of primitive man reveals the close cor- 
respondence between sensation and muscular response and the 
meagre power of inhibition. The child is similarly endowed to 



98 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

a marked degree. Primitive man did not acquire perceptions 
merely for the sake of hoarding them; neither were they for his 
improvement in the abstract. He acquired knowledge that he 
might reproduce it in action — in making something or in doing 
something. Note the identical tendency in the child. How 
eager he is to learn provided he expects to use that knowledge. 
Moreover, he must foresee immediate use. Only as the race 
grew older did man become provident against the rainy day and 
acquire for the sake of possible contingencies. Only as the 
child approaches manhood's estate does he begin to take pleas- 
ure in acquiring for more remote use. It might be added here 
incidentally that the race never acquires or learns without 
seeing the utility of so doing. Only pedantic school-masters 
argue for acquiring knowledge for knowledge's sake, or for an 
abstract discipline. These deeply implanted race instincts 
should be respected. Ideally we should never require a child to 
learn an atom of knowledge unless it can be made to appeal to 
him as worth while. Otherwise we are proceeding entirely 
counter to a most fundamental law of nature. 

Order of Motor and Mental Activities. — The relative order of 
the development of manual and mental activities corroborates 
in a striking way the law of recapitulation. The race was for a 
vast length of time engaged in manual labor. In fact, the great 
majority of mankind still toil with the hands. The life interests 
of humanity demand these activities. Success as a result of 
headwork in an office or in the invention of machinery is of 
recent origin. Anthropology and history show that primitive 
man enjoyed bodily activity — not necessarily the drudgery of 
work, but the chase, warfare, and bodily contests. Mankind in 
general would prefer bodily activity to mental if it only paid as 
well. 

In the child we see the racial order retraced. What normal 
child prefers a stuffy school-room and books to work on the 
farm with tools, or the most menial kinds of manual service? 
Children's spontaneous plays (which are their work) are always 
chosen from among manual activities. My children saw, plane, 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 99 

fashion all sorts of implements, vehicles, circuses and shows; 
sew, make doll clothes, etc. ; but they plan little intellectual work 
which does not have manual activity as a basis. Ask children 
under ten what they would like to be and they almost invariably 
answer, a drayman, a carpenter, a farmer, a wood-sawyer, a 
bricklayer, a paper-carrier, a dressmaker, a cook, a gardener, 
etc. Even children of professional men choose such vocations. 
The occupations in their environment have made little impres- 
sion upon them, and that of a negative sort. 

When shall we learn that the child is right in these things? 
Give a child a few tools, an opportunity to work in the garden 
(with you, of course), allow him to split and pile wood, wash 
dishes, cook, dust the floors, mow the lawn, or help on the farm, 
and you find a responsive chord at once. Properly directed, 
given under conditions not to make it repugnant, and allowed 
to be apparently spontaneous, manual work will appeal to any 
healthy boy or girl. Even in the high schools and colleges, 
students have not ceased to prefer manual activities to mental. 
Compare their enthusiasm over foot-ball with that for mathe- 
matics ! And the foot-ball is not play either. No body of stu- 
dents is quite so enthusiastic over prescribed tasks as are engineer- 
ing students. Without doubt, much of their enthusiasm is 
created through the element of manual work which always leads 
to the making of something. A better recognition of the place 
of the manual arts and crafts in all grades of school work is much 
needed. To afford them a proper place in the lower grades, 
especially, is imperative. Unfortunately we study how to keep 
children out of the very things they are just spoiling to do. 

Spencer's Views on Recapitulation and Education. — Spencer 
was thoroughly committed to the idea that "the education of 
the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the 
education of mankind as considered historically; or in other 
words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual must follow 
the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race." Again, 
he wrote that "education should be a repetition of civilization 
in little. It is alike probable that the historical sequence was, 



ioo PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

in its main outlines, a necessary one; and that the causes which 
determined it apply to the child as to the race." 1 

Sense Awakening before Reflection. — In the child, as in the 
race, the senses are alert long before the higher powers of asso- 
ciation have developed to any extent. For long ages the race 
lived a life filled with simple sensory-motor reactions. Hunger 
was felt and means were employed to satisfy it. This done, 
effort ceased. The demands of the morrow were not considered 
until that time came. Inventions were not wrought out. The 
forces of nature were observed, but few means of utilizing them 
were devised. From lack of relational insight such as was 
necessary to connect the expansive force of steam and the action 
of a lever, the secrets of nature were long unguessed. It was 
only after long ages of activity in the simpler processes of relating 
sensory impressions and concrete ideas which developed associa- 
tion fibres and tracts, that the abstruse problems of invention, 
discovery, and scientific thinking were made possible. Simi- 
larly in the child we find at birth that the nervous mechanisms 
necessary for carrying on abstract thought processes are entirely 
wanting. From lack of structural maturity the child is even 
blind and deaf for some days. But although the functions of 
sight, hearing, and all the other senses advance with great rapid- 
ity, the processes of rational thinking develop very tardily. 
Structurally we find that the higher brain areas, such as the 
frontal lobes and the association fibres, are relatively undevel- 
oped. The frontal lobe must grow and the association fibres 
must connect the various areas before any high degree of re- 
lational thinking can be carried on. 

Apropos of the foregoing, Hinsdale may be quoted: 2 "In 
his first years the Colossal Man, far from being a metaphysician, 
or even a natural philosopher, lived in his senses. His first 
course of study, so to speak, was furnished by his external sur- 
roundings. It was nature-stuff. Physics was before meta- 
physics. The same is true of every individual who joins the 
great procession that we call the race." 

1 Education, p. 122. 2 Second Yearbook, National Herbart Society, p. 120. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 101 

The Lengthened Period of Human Infancy. — We have noted 
that the protozoans are very simple, undifferentiated structures 
and that their psychic life consists of a few simple acts directed 
toward food-getting. It remains to be further observed that 
they continue practically unchanged from the time they enter 
upon an independent existence, as a result of division of the 
parent cell, until they subdivide to form new independent 
daughter cells. They are the only animals with "all-round" 
development and with unchanging form and capacities. Even 
the animals with rudimentary nervous systems develop little 
physically or mentally during their round of existence. Their 
actions are practically all instinctive. As soon as born they can 
take care of themselves as well as they ever can. Practically 
all their actions are predetermined for them by the inherited 
tendencies of their organism. Such animals acquire practically 
nothing through individual experience. Heredity is practically 
everything for them. In these lower orders there is no period 
of infancy, in fact there is no necessity for it, nor possibility. 
Each individual does just what its ancestors have done, in a 
reflex, automatic way, and we have seen that its nervous system 
is adapted to that mode of existence. The actions are so few 
and so simple that the tendency becomes perfectly ingrained in 
the nervous system before birth. 

As soon as any form of life finds it necessary to adapt itself 
frequently to new and unusual conditions in order to maintain 
an existence, individual progress becomes necessary. The 
accumulations of racial experience no longer suffice to adjust it 
to environing conditions. It becomes necessary for the individ- 
ual to be able to continue developing after birth. The nervous 
system, formerly developed only so as to preserve inheritance as 
reflexes, then adds other centres which control individual adapta- 
tions. This was at first very slow, so that even animals like birds 
depend largely upon inherited reactions. Their lives are ex- 
ceedingly simple as compared with that of the administrator 
of a great industrial, political, or social organization, who must 
grasp and evaluate a multitude of complex relations. In this 



102 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

higher stage it is impossible in the short period before birth 
to effect the organization of such complex reactions. John 
Fiske, who was the first to point out the significance of the 
period of infancy in the evolution of educable beings, wrote: 
"Instead of the power of doing all the things which its parents 
did, it starts with the power of doing only some few of them; 
for the rest it has only latent capacities which need to be brought 
out by its individual experience after birth. In other words, 
it begins its separate life not as a matured creature, but as an 
infant which needs for a time to be watched and helped." 1 

In the ascending scale of life we observed a gradually in- 
creasing complexity of physical structure, especially as evidenced 
in the sense organs and the nervous system; a gradual evolution 
of an increasingly complex psychical life; and now we remark 
another correlation, that of a gradually lengthened period of 
infancy. The chick, though dependent for protection for some 
time, has most of its life reactions fairly well organized at birth. 
Puppies, kittens, and whelps are much more helpless for several 
weeks or months, though they do not learn much as individuals. 
Anthropoid apes are the most helpless at birth of all non-human 
beings, as well as the most educable. For a month the young 
orang cannot stand alone. It begins much like a human infant 
by holding on to various objects for support. Fiske says 2 that 
the "man-like apes of Africa and the Indian Archipelago have 
advanced far beyond the mammalian world in general. Along 
with a cerebral surface and an accompanying intelligence, far 
greater than that of other mammals, these tailless apes begin 
life as helpless babies, and are unable to walk, to feed them- 
selves, or to grasp objects with precision until they are two or 
three months old." At a corresponding age monkeys have 
mastered the operations of locomotion and prehension. 

The period of human infancy is so greatly prolonged that the 
human child is the object of tenderest solicitation and care for 
many years. Even with all the care they receive, about one-third 
of the human race die under the age of five years. Properly the 

1 Destiny of Man, p. 40. * Destiny of Man, p. 53. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 103 

period of human infancy extends to the age of twelve or thirteen 
years, the age when it is possible (though highly undesirable) for 
them to maintain themselves, if absolutely compelled to. If it 
is held to include the entire age of plasticity and teachableness, 
as has been done by some (Butler, Fiske) , it would comprise the 
period of adolescence as well. This would not be an erroneous 
mode of conceiving it. 

Fiske writes: 1 "Infancy, psychologically considered, is the 
period during which the nerve-connections and correlative ideal 
associations necessary for self-maintenance are becoming per- 
manently established. Now, this period, which only begins to 
exist when the intelligence is considerably complex, becomes 
longer and longer as the intelligence increases in complexity. 
In the human race it is much longer than in any other race of 
mammals, and it is much longer in the civilized man than in the 
savage. Indeed among the educated classes of civilized society, 
its average duration may be said to be rather more than a quarter 
of a century, since during all this time those who are to live by 
brain-work are simply acquiring the capacity to do so, and are 
usually supported upon the products of parental labor." Dr. 
Butler says on the same point that, "as our civilization has 
become more complex, as its products have become more 
numerous, richer, deeper, and more far-reaching, the longer we 
have extended that period of tutelage, until now, while the 
physiological period of adolescence is reached in perhaps four- 
teen or fifteen years, the educational period of dependence is 
almost twice as long. That is to say, the length of time that it 
takes for the human child in this generation so to adapt himself 
to his surroundings as to be able to succeed in them, to conquer 
them, and to make them his own, is almost, if not quite thirty 
years. The education in the kindergarten, the elementary 
school, the secondary school, the college, the professional 
school, the period of apprenticeship in the profession before 
independent practice can be entered upon, is in not a few cases, 
now twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-eight or even thirty years." 2 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, II, p. 342. 2 The Meaning of Education, p. 12. 



104 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Adolescence in this view is simply a special and marked period 
of infancy. Considered either way, infancy is a significant 
phase in the development of an individual. It was also a great 
stride in evolution toward the development of psychical domina- 
tion in the world as opposed to brute force. 

Thus the period of dependence, in a sense the period of 
infancy, is not only very long in the human being as compared 
with all other animals, but it is increasing as civilization increases 
in complexity. To live under conditions of modern civilization 
and become properly adjusted to them requires such a vast 
number and variety of adaptations that one can become properly 
prepared for it only after a very long period of many-sided 
education. One may very properly question whether the de- 
mands of the present are not rendering the complexities so 
numerous and intricate that the effort toward adjustment is 
at the expense of proper balance between physical and mental 
possessions. Is it not drawing upon nervous energy at the ex- 
pense of bodily ? Has evolution proceeded far enough to admit 
of such extreme psychical specialization? Or have sufficient 
organs in the way of machines and contrivances been evolved 
to sustain the functions which modern life has imposed? To 
have an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of one's busi- 
ness or vocation, each a thousand times more gigantic and intri- 
cate than a century ago; to keep up with the day's doings in 
the world; to disentangle the myriad political, commercial, and 
social relations of all the nations; to assimilate the world's past 
and to interpret its present; and to evolve out of all this a philos- 
ophy of life; (and nothing mentioned can be omitted by the one 
who keeps up with the times) — to accomplish all this imposes a 
drain up.on nervous and mental force unexampled in all the 
history of evolution. 

Fiske has made the striking point that the development of 
society was directly dependent upon the initiation and prolonga- 
tion of a period of infancy. All political and social institutions 
are mainly an outgrowth of the family. The institution of the 
family was made necessary and possible through the helpless- 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 105 

ness of offspring. Their helplessness aroused mutual feelings 
of sympathy in parents and older offspring, resulting in longer 
periods of close companionship. Finally not only family inter- 
ests and bonds were developed, but also community relationships . 
An examination of the genesis and growth of morality reveals 
also that morality is concomitant with the growth of community 
life. Incipient morality is first observed in the social animals, 
und it develops progressively through the lowest human tribal 
organization up to the highest altruistic communities. Here 
are two important directions in the highest education of man 
accomplished through the period of long infancy. Current 
history as well as evolution chronicles the same lesson. Dis- 
cords, divorces, and separations are astonishingly more frequent 
in households where no children have cemented the bonds that 
first produced the union. Childless people are usually devoid of 
many feelings of sympathy that actuate persons who have chil- 
dren. This is especially true where the parents were "only" 
children and reared in affluence. Thus since the state and all 
higher forms of institutional life rest upon the family, the child 
should become the centre of regard in our noblest efforts to up- 
lift humanity. Through all his years of plasticity the wisest 
nurture should be afforded that will assist nature in unfolding 
what is best in the child and extend his evolution to the highest 
point possible. 

Besides the best physical and physiological inheritance to 
which the child is entitled and which the best of nutrition and 
care should develop undiminished, there is a social inheritance 
which is the birthright of every human individual. This social 
inheritance is bequeathed to posterity not in the form of fixed 
structures and reactions, but in the works of man as represented 
in institutions, discoveries, arts, sciences, traditions, and beliefs. 
Butler says these spiritual possessions "may be variously classi- 
fied, but they certainly are at least five-fold. The child is 
entitled to his scientific inheritance, to his literary inheritance, 
to his aesthetic inheritance, to his institutional inheritance, and to 
his religious inheritance. Without them he cannot become a 



106 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

truly educated or a cultivated man." 1 He further maintains that, 
"The period of infancy is to be used by civilized men for adapta- 
tion along these five lines, in order to introduce the child to his 
intellectual and spiritual inheritance, just as the shorter period 
of infancy in the lower animals is used to develop, to adjust, and 
to co-ordinate those physical actions which constitute the higher 
instincts, and which require the larger, the more deeply fur- 
rowed, and the more complex brain. That, as it seems to me, 
is the lesson of biology, of physiology, and of psychology, on the 
basis of the theory of evolution, regarding the meaning and the 
place of education in modern life." 2 

Recapitulation and the Relative Value of Knowledge. — In 
seeking an answer to the question, "What knowledge is of most 
worth?" Spencer turned to race history. He assumed that 
knowledge to be most fundamental which was first devel- 
oped by the race and therefore of most worth at all times. 
This elemental knowledge he finds to be that which directly 
ministers to self-preservation. "That next after direct self- 
preservation comes the indirect self-preservation which consists 
in acquiring the means of living, none will question." Third in 
order come " those activities which have for their end the rearing 
and discipline of offspring. ... That a man's industrial func- 
tions must be considered before his parental ones, is manifest from 
the fact that, speaking generally, the discharge of the parental 
functions is made possible only by the previous discharge of the 
industrial ones." Next in order he places "Those activities 
which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and 
political relations." This he regards as following the phyloge- 
netic order, "As the family comes before the State in order of 
time — as the bringing up of children is possible before the State 
exists, or when it has ceased to be, whereas the State is rendered 
possible only by the bringing up of children; it follows that the 
duties of the parent demand closer attention than those of the 
citizen." The final group of race activities which determine 
the relative values of instruction for the individual are "Those 

1 The Meaning of Education, p. 19. 2 Ibid., p. 31. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF RECAPITULATION 107 

miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of life, 
devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings." 1 

The foregoing furnishes a fairly good order of emphasis of 
different kinds of knowledge. Of course, each is intricately 
interwoven with all the others, but the order suggested is 
practically coincident with the order of the development of the 
individual's interests in the various activities. That the types 
of knowledge taught in the schools should harmonize with the 
natural rise of interests is sound doctrine. At every stage the 
school should be correlated with life's dominant, legitimate 
interests. 

Many more educational applications suggested by embryology will be stated 
in the chapters on " From Fundamental to Accessory," " Instinct," " Correlations 
between Mind and Body," "Sensory Education," and "Motor Education." 
The next chapter deals with a special phase of application in the "Culture 
Epochs Theory." 

1 Spencer, Education, pp. 32, 33. 






'■W^H^ 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND EDUCATION 

Meaning of Culture Epochs. — Various attempts have been 
made to map out the periods of child development and to study 
them in the light of corresponding periods of racial develop- 
ment. Exponents of the " Culture Epochs Theory" assume that 
the particular kinds of environment, experience, or education 
which the race received and which produced particular develop- 
ment in the race at certain periods should produce the same 
sort of development in the individual at corresponding periods. 
It is also assumed that the child must retrace each of the phyloge- 
netic stages in order to develop normally. Hence a study of 
the race has been made to determine what kind of culture 
materials contributed to its progress from each given stage to 
the next higher. This is done n order to give the child the 
same sort of material at a corresponding period. During a 
certain epoch it is known that man was evolving myths, legends, 
and folk-tales. These are believed to have been the culture 
materials which enabled the race to develop into a higher stage. 
Different interests and activities occupied the dominant place 
at different periods. At one period it was war, at another the 
hunt and chase, at another the beginnings of agriculture, etc. 
The mental life as manifested in speech, song, poetry, and 
literature also corresponded to dominant interests. Thus dif- 
ferent culture materials are supposed to have been utilized at 
different epochs of race history. Hence the term "Culture- 
epochs." It is thus seen that we may speak of the pastoral 
epoch, the nomadic period, the stone age, the bronze age, the 
hunting stage, the agricultural epoch, the urban period, etc. 
Herbartian Applications. — The Herbartian school of education- 
ists especially have attached much value to the culture epochs 
theory of education. They have arranged very definite pro- 

108 




CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND 

gram of study which they believe To" be fitted to afford the 
child the specific culture necessary to assist him wisely into the 
next stage of growth. The following outline scheme represents 
the ideas of Professor Rein, of Jena, as to the proper sequence 
and arrangement of materials for the German Volks-school. 1 



SCHOOL 
YEAR 


MATERIALS OF INSTRUCTION 


GENERAL CHARACTER OF 
EPOCHS 


I 


Folklore and Fairy Tales 




2 


Robinson Crusoe 




3 


Sacred 


Profane 


Mythical and Heroic 
Mind 




Patriarchs and 
Moses 


Thuringian 
Tales 


4 


Judges and 
Kings 


Nibelungen 
Tales 




5 


Life of Christ 


Christianizing and 
Kaiser Period 


Mediaeval State • build- 




ing 


6 


Life of Christ 


Kaiser Period 


Historic Mind 


7 


Paul 


Reformation 


Social and Political 


8 


Luther 


Nationalization 


Development. Scien- 
tific and Philosophic 
Mind 



Dr. Otto Beyer has set forth, 2 as shown below, the chief 
stages of human development, when viewed from the side of 
man's reaction to his varying environment. The instructional 
material which would be desirable for the child representing 
each epoch is also indicated. 



SCHOOL 
DIVISIONS 


RACIAL EPOCHS 


CULTURE MATERIAL 


I 


The Stage of the Hunter 


Robinson Crusoe 


2 


The Nomadic Stage 


History of the Patri- 
archs 


3 


Agricultural Epoch 


History of the Kings and 
Judges 


4 


Epochs of Primal Division of Labor, 
Development of Manual Trades, 
Retail Trade, and Small Cities 


German Middle Ages 


5 


Metropolitan Life, Wholesale Trade, 
Great Industries 


Modern History of Ger- 
many 



1 Van Liew, First Yearbook oj the National Herbart Society, p. 99. 2 lb., p. 97. 



no PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Professor Ziller, in his practice school at the University of 
Leipsic, used the following materials and arrangement as the 
centre of instruction in each of the eight years of the Volks- 
school: ist year, The Epic; Folklore Stories from Grimm; 
2nd year, Robinsoe Crusoe; 3rd year, History of the Patriarchs; 
Heroic Age of Germany and Thuringian Nibelungen Myths; 
4th year, Heroic Times of the Hebrews; Moses and the Judges; 
History of the German Kings; 5th year, David and the Kings 
of Israel; History of Germany from Barbarism to Rudolph von 
Hapsburg; 6th year, Jesus and the Prophets ; History of the 
Reformation and Frederick the Great; 7th year, History of the 
Apostles; Secular History of Antiquity ; 8th year, Final Review 
of the Catechism; The Reformation. 

Professor Van Liew writes * that: " Beginning with the third 
year a second series of material drawn from profane history 
(that of the fatherland) is co-ordinated with the sacred series. 
In these thought-wholes of material the pupil traverses, corre- 
sponding to his own development, the chief periods in the 
development of mankind." Ziller wrote: "All history, and in 
fact the entire cultural development both of a single people and 
of all mankind, is stored up chiefly in the masterpieces of lan- 
guage; and the chief epochs of this development quite accord 
with the chief stages in the individual development of the 
pupil. Hence the mental development of the pupil cannot be 
furthered better than by drawing his mental nourishment from 
the universal products of culture as depicted in literature." 

Miss Harriet Scott, in Organic Education, outlines a minutely 
detailed plan of work designed to suit the varying stages of 
growth recapitulated by the child. In the first grades (five to 
six years) , Hiawatha is to be the core around which all instruc- 
tion and activities are to be grouped. Hiawatha is chosen 
because, 2 "The child at this age is yet in the dawning of his 
mental life. The dominant interest of this period of develop- 
ment may be characterized as sense-hunger. His interest is a 
veritable hunger which, to satisfy itself, seizes upon every fact 

1 First Yearbook of the National Herbart Society, p. 85. 
a Organic Education, p. 68. 



CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND EDUCATION in 

of the natural and institutional world that comes within range 
of his senses. 

"In brief, he begins at this epoch to organize his knowledge. 
. . . This is the period of his strongest affection for all things 
in nature. There is now no barrier between him and them. 
He is in a real sense one with them. . . . He contrives rude 
means to his own ends, just as Hiawatha devised his own 
implements of warfare or industry and the necessary means of 
communication and of transportation. ... In this grade the 
nomadic period of civilization is covered, Hiawatha, the Indian 
boy, being the type of the period. . . . The child is encouraged 
to compare himself with Hiawatha in respect to self-reliance, 
ability to contrive, accuracy of observation, etc., until the ideal 
has taken firm root in his mind and is used as a standard 
unconsciously." 

In the second half of the first year the children take Kablu, 
the Aryan Boy,«as their chief pabulum. "For the child of this 
grade, the Hiawatha period of intense curiosity, imaginative- 
ness, and contrivance has merged into the period represented by 
Kablu, a stage of curiosity somewhat less acute, of imagination 
somewhat less dominant, and of contrivance more complex and 
finished. . . . Kablu, the little Aryan boy, represents the agri- 
cultural period of civilization." 

Darius, the Persian boy, forms the centre and circumference 
of all the boy's thoughts during the next half-year. Cleon, the 
Greek boy, is brought on the scene for grade B2; while 
Horatius, the Roman boy, is reserved for A2. The next half- 
year seems to be epitomizing history with gigantic strides and 
Wulf, the Saxon boy, is put on the scene to inspire the child in 
B3. Gilbert, the French boy, Columbus, Raleigh, the Puritans, 
all pass in review, and by grade A4, or at about ten or eleven 
years of age, the period of national development is reached. 
The rest of life seems to be a process of becoming adjusted to 
the present, since no new periods of study are suggested. 

Miss Scott has designed to arrange the culture materials so 
that they minister to the dominant instincts. "Every period 



ii2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

studied may be said to branch into three great trunks — nature, 
institutions, and art." While it is a sound pedagogical pro- 
cedure for general guidance, it is erroneous to suppose that the 
minute correspondence between phylogeny and ontogeny can 
be discerned. It is still more chimerical to assume that the 
exact racial culture means need be or can be utilized in trying 
to aid the struggling individual to pass through the various stages 
of metamorphosis. New means must be devised to meet new 
conditions of life and development. This is the great law of 
life and progress. 

Critical Considerations. — Educationally the law of recapitu- 
lation has wonderful significance, especially in relation to instinct, 
but it is important to understand it thoroughly before attempting 
to construct details of school curricula in accordance with its 
teachings. The theory of recapitulation shows that the law 
of the conservation of energy is operative in mental as well as 
in physical evolution. Race energy and power are conserved 
in the individuals comprising the race. All of past racial history 
is written in each individual, but it must not be supposed that 
the writing is easily legible. It is an exceedingly intricate sys- 
tem of hieroglyphics, which the various sciences have only just 
begun to spell out. It must not be expected that each experi- 
ence of all the myriads of individuals of past generations can 
be traced out in their original identity. It must not be thought 
that all the identities have been retained. 

As will be shown in the chapter on memory, no experiences 
are ever lost, but they may lose their identity. I am the heir 
of all the ages, but I am not permitted to count my inheritance 
in the same denominations as did my ancestors. It has gone 
through many courses of exchange. Or, to change the figure, 
each individual is a resultant of all the forces brought to bear 
upon his ancestry and himself. To compute or discover each 
factor would be impossible to a finite being. Facts and logic 
compel us to believe that each individual epitomizes race history, 
i. e., ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. But it must be kept 
in mind that each individual is a resultant of forces many of 



CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND EDUCATION 113 

which have operated against each other, and consequently may 
have had counterbalancing effects. Biologically this would 
mean elimination or annihilation of various potencies acquired 
through experience. Biology has suggested the theory of re- 
capitulation, but it should be understood that the most careful 
study of embryology fails to reveal more than the outlines of 
the course of development. As Balfour has written: 1 "Like 
the scholar with his manuscript, the embryologist has by a 
process of careful and critical examination to determine where 
the gaps are present, to detect the later insertions, and to place 
in order what has been misplaced." 

Recapitulation Insufficient to Determine Course of Study. — 
It is plain, then, that the doctrine of recapitulation alone is not a 
safe guide in determining the detailed materials of instruction 
or its exact sequence. That the race was occupied at a particu- 
lar period with certain ideas or activities is no reason for giving 
the child the same ideas and activities. The development of 
the child must determine these matters. We have seen that 
the correspondence between race and individual development 
is in no way exact; it is merely a general resemblance. The 
child of to-day resembles the young (not the adults) of more 
immature races, but passes beyond them in his ultimate devel- 
opment. 

Phytogeny and Individual Interests. — The interest which 
children exhibit in fairy tales and myths is said to arise at that 
particular period because they are retracing the corresponding 
period of racial history. It is claimed that they are more inter- 
ested in these and can comprehend them better than products 
of our own civilization. For similar reasons history is taken up 
in a chronological order, it being assumed that the child is 
interested in ancient history first, and only lastly in modern 
phases. It is even claimed that the study of science should 
follow the order of its discovery. It is true that instinctive 
potentialities determine the general type of interest, but it is 
not true that the child can comprehend most easily that which 

1 Quoted by Baldwin, Mental Development, p. 28. 



ii 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

is most ancient. The very opposite, indeed, is apt to be true. 
That which is remote is so far removed from the realm of his 
experiences that it finds no point of contact in the child's think- 
ing. Ancient history cannot be comprehended by the child 
until he gets some background of present-day experience through 
which to view the past. That which was wrought out by 
primitive peoples may be the most difficult for the child to 
understand. I well remember my own attitude of disgust with 
the mythical history of Greece. It was only after understand- 
ing something of the psychological development of myths that 
I became interested in reading such history. On the other 
hand, the stories of the Civil War, in which my father and 
other relatives had taken a part, were always listened to with 
the most intense interest, while Jason, Hannibal, Pyrrhus, and 
all the rest of those whose manners were so strange, were avoided 
except as tasks. As a student of the philosophy of history, I 
have been interested in the evolution of the enginery of war and 
political units, but as facts they never interested me when a 
child. The child wants concrete experiences that he can respond 
to and not philosophy. 

I have asked kindergartners why they had birch-bark canoes, 
wigwams, and primitive ploughs for the children to study and 
not something more modern. They replied: "The child could 
not understand modern complex things, and he would not be 
interested in them. He must have more primitive products." 
I have no objections to the wigwams and the savage trinkets, 
but I have to the principles stated. A given object or activity 
may be ever so "modern" and still be the delight of children, 
provided it comes within their comprehension. A sixteen-shot 
Winchester rifle is no more puzzling to a boy of ten than would 
be a cross-bow of savage tribes. A modern gang-plough, a steam 
engine, or an automobile is as simple to the child as the 
rudest modern implements or those of the ancient Egyptians; 
the modern telephone and the postal system are quite as com- 
prehensible to a modern boy as the means of communication in 
vogue ten thousand years ago; in fact, they are simpler to him, 



CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND EDUCATION 115 

because they deal with things of observation and experience. 
To be sure, the boy does not comprehend the philosophy of all 
these modern processes — what he sees are externals. These 
he takes as matters of course and extracts no complexities. The 
child sees things superficially, in broad outlines only, and 
complex surroundings produced by telephones, telegraphs, 
trolley-cars, and newspapers present no greater complexities to 
the modern child than abiding in a wigwam and living by 
hunting. Children may be in homes where philosophy is dis- 
cussed, but they hear it not. Complexities of life exist all about 
the child, but he responds only to that for which his development 
has attuned him. Later on he becomes fitted by complexity 
of neurological and psychological development to vibrate in 
harmony with a more complex order of things — but not neces- 
sarily those things only which have come within ancestral 
experience. 

Imitation and Interest. — I well remember, when a child, 
trying to fashion modern mowing-machines and threshing- 
machines. I did not take to scythe-making, or threshing with a 
flail, or even tramping the grain out with the feet. The fact 
is, that children imitate the life about them as they see it. The 
things that interest them are the things re-enacted. It may be 
foot-ball, or marching to the sound of martial music, but in 
either case they will have none but the most modern parapher- 
nalia. Nothing but sweaters and padded knees, swords, guns, 
and drums will answer. 

When we foist upon the child the products of civilization in 
the order in which they were developed and because they were 
so developed, we are trying to make him realize an adult philoso- 
phy of development. Prof. Simon N. Patten * " points out 
that the argument often advanced in behalf of the culture 
epochs, that modern life is too complex for the child to grasp, and 
that education therefore must begin with ancient materials to 
get initial simplicity, is weak." He asserts that "the sickle is 
not simpler to the boy than the harvester, so long as both repre- 

1 Pub. Am. Academy Political and Social Science, No. 136. 



n6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

sent to his mind the process of reaping. The same would be 
equally true of the most complex piece of social, industrial, or 
political mechanism, as long as the child can see what it ac- 
complishes. The argument holds good, however, only so long 
as we contemplate the mechanism merely in the performance of 
its function; let it once become the object of analytic investiga- 
tion of structure or of development and the case is reversed. 
Then the sickle is simpler than the harvester, and it is by such 
analysis that the object is understood by us." 

It has been asserted that children will reproduce the activities 
suggested in mythology, Robinson Crusoe stories, etc., rather 
than the various activities which they witness about them daily. 
My own observations lead me to the opposite view. Many other 
persons with whom I have talked, confirm my views. My chil- 
dren build not palaces of the giant, nor the home of Cinderella, 
but instead they construct bridges, railway trains, fences, barns, 
houses of modern pattern, automobiles, etc. The factors de- 
termining the children's specific activities are interest and 
imitation, not ancestral experience. Ancestral experience may 
and does place limitations upon powers and capacities of the 
individual, but the order of racial experience is absolutely unre- 
liable as a guide in determining the order of the details of indi- 
vidual instruction. The individual is not a sum of all racial 
experience, but rather a resultant of all of them in which the 
particular experiences have largely lost their identity. 

Conclusions. — Although the knowledge of recapitulation and 
the culture epochs does not furnish a guide-book for the details 
of educational practice, yet it is of the utmost significance in 
marking out the broad outlines of educational procedure. 
Even though it were not true that ontogeny recapitulates phylog- 
eny, there is such a close correspondence or parallelism between 
the development of the individual and the ascending forms of 
life that each can throw much light upon the other. The 
failure of the culture epochs to furnish a curriculum is not due 
to any unreliability of the law of recapitulation. The main 
reasons why a knowledge of the kind of culture materials 



CULTURE EPOCHS THEORY AND EDUCATION 117 

utilized by the race at a given time cannot furnish this guidance 
are twofold, viz. : first, a given kind of stimuli may produce very 
different reactions upon different individuals. The effect de- 
pends upon all previous effects. The child of to-day is not just 
like the man of yesterday. The child of to-day is like the child 
of yesterday, plus the potentialities of the man of to-day. 
Second, since so many short-circuits have been established, the 
details of successive stages have become so obscured that only 
large outlines are observable. 

A knowledge of phylogeny has been of great value in assisting 
us to understand the order of development of the latent powers. 
Knowing the phylogenetic order of unfoldment will assist in 
securing appropriate stimuli for the awakening of the various 
powers. Many diverse kinds of objective stimuli might be 
employed, however, to secure a given general type of reaction. 
The particular kind of stimuli most efficient will depend largely 
upon the individual's interest, that in turn being dependent upon 
environment. Thus the culture epochs theory is more sug- 
gestive as to the method of approach than as to the content of 
the curriculum. It is doubtless also very suggestive as to the 
order of presentation of the different aspects of a given subject. 
The very same material may be presented in concrete details 
or as scientific abstractions. 

The culture epochs theory shows plainly that the order should 
be from simple -to complex, from the concrete to the abstract, 
from sensory impressions to abstract relations, etc. But the 
materials employed by primitive man may be considered in 
scientific relations, or present-day knowledge may be considered 
in a very simple way. The scientific truths about steam dis- 
covered by present-day man will ever be scientific truths and 
unsuitable for children. Similarly the obvious concrete phe- 
nomena regarding steam will ever be concrete. Their availa- 
bility for cultural material in the education of children will in 
no wise depend upon the time of their discovery by man, but 
upon the interest determined by their relation to life activities. 
In conclusion, a knowledge of the order of the unfolding of the 



n8 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

various powers is important, the particular material utilized 
in furthering this development is relatively less important. 
The discussion of instinct, heredity, and the law of from funda- 
mental to accessory, shows more clearly how inherited impulses 
and tendencies may be utilized in education. 1 

1 For a more extended critical discussion of the culture epochs theory by 
the author see Journal oj Pedagogy, 16 : 136-152. 



CHAPTER VII 
FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION 

r 

Meaning. — In studying children and lower animals it has 
been noticed that at birth certain movements and certain parts 
of the body are much better controlled than others. The child 
can move its whole body with much force; the legs and arms 
also can be moved with great strength, while the fingers' seem 
powerless and entirely lacking in precision. A little reflection 
further recalls the fact that the vital processes of respiration, 
digestion, and circulation are thoroughly functional at birth, 
while processes of thinking, speech, writing, and walking have 
to be learned through toilsome endeavor and after some degree 
of maturity is reached. 

From the stand-point of structure we find that those organs 
which are the most vital, the oldest, and most stable are the first 
to be developed. The heart, lungs, circulatory organs, and 
skin are developed before the special organs of sense. An 
individual could exist without eyes or ears, but not without 
organs of circulation. In the growth of the bones those which 
form the framework are first developed. The backbone, the 
large bones of the trunk and the head, develop first, and later 
those of the limbs. The larger bones precede the smaller ones, 
such bones as the fingers and toes appearing late in fcetal life. 
The teeth and the finer bony structures of the ear are of late 
appearance; the former, though rudimentary in late fcetal life, 
not becoming visible until months after birth. The muscles 
follow similar lines of growth and development. The great 
muscles of the trunk and limbs judged from both the stand-point 
of function and structure are developed before the muscles of 

119 



120 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the hand, the face, and the eye. A child can move its entire 
body vigorously, roll over alone at a few days of age, kick vigor- 
ously and throw its arms about, but it is a long time before it can 
pick up a pin from the floor, hold a pencil steadily enough to 
write, or control the movements of the eyes. The eyes are so 
unco-ordinated for weeks and even months that one can scarcely 
tell in which direction many children are looking. Of course, 
there are many individual differences, but the order of develop- 
ment is the same for all. 

Those movements and structures which appear earliest and 
which seem so important to simple existence .are termed funda- 
mental. Those which develop later, and which seem necessary 
only to complex existence, are termed accessory. The order 
of development from those simpler modes and types to the 
more complex is termed "from fundamental to accessory." 
The terms fundamental and accessory are not employed here 
as referring to any fixed sets of organs or functions. The 
meaning is relative instead. In a general way, by fundamental 
we mean also that which is vital and necessarv to existence. 
By accessory we mean that which is less vital and in a way less 
necessary to existence. The entire expression "from funda- 
mental to accessory" means that development proceeds from 
that which is relatively simple, fixed, stable, and indispensable 
to that which is less so. Usually that which is the more funda- 
mental is earlier developed than the accessory. 

Order in Phylogenesis as in Ontogenesis. — This order of de- 
velopment from fundamental to accessory is true not only of 
the growth of individuals but also of the race. All animal life 
has doubtless evolved from very simple types. The earliest, 
lowliest, most primitive organisms possessed only the structures 
and functions absolutely necessary to existence. A single organ, 
the skin, as shown before, served many purposes equally well. 
Refined sensory organs, prehensile and motor organs, were of 
very late acquisition. While convenient, wonderfully useful, 
and marks of the highest aristocracy in animal development, 
most of the late acquisitions could be dispensed with and life 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 121 

processes still continue. Considered comparatively we observe 
that the lower animals perform all the vital functions as well as 
or often better than human beings. The latter have degenerated 
in this direction in many cases through the processes of higher 
specialization. All of the higher animals begin life as unicel- 
lular germs and gradually become differentiated by the develop- 
ment of specialized and more complex structures. 

Illustrated in Development of Nervous System. — In the devel- 
opment of the nervous system we find an excellent illustration 
of the law under discussion. The first portion to develop is the 
spinal cord, which in the individual and the race is at first a 
simple affair — mainly a comparatively straight undifferentiated 
tube. Following this the various collateral branches forming the 
peripheral system with the end organs of sense develop. There 
occurs along with this differentiation the specialization of one 
portion of the nervous system into the brain. The brain itself 
develops gradually, and so-called different "levels" develop 
at different times. The medulla develops first, the cerebellum 
next, and last the cerebral lobes. Even here the complete 
development does not occur all at once. The frontal areas and 
other most highly specialized areas are the very last to develop 
to functional maturity. It is not to be inferred, of course, that 
each stage or level is completed before the next begins. The 
development of many parts goes on synchronously and there are 
only slight differences between a given level and the next higher. 
But when we compare a very low, vital, and fundamental portion 
with a very high and late function, the difference becomes strik- 
ing. For example, all vital or vegetative functions are controlled 
by the spinal cord, which is the seat of control of reflexes. This 
becomes functional very early, while the frontal cerebral lobes 
are very late in morphological and functional development. 
The spinal cord is so fundamental and absolutely necessary to 
life that the slightest injury to it causes death. On the other 
hand, the cerebral lobes may be burned, electrified, or even 
excised and life goes on — sometimes apparently unaffected by 
the injury. 



122 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Professor Tyler 1 has the following to say: "What we call 
our brain has been builded by successive additions at very 
different periods of geological history. Medulla, cerebellum, 
mid-brain, and the basal ganglia of the cerebrum are old. 
They may all date from early palaeozoic time. The cortex is 
far younger, and its portions are of different ages. The asso- 
ciation areas very probably did not arise until well on in tertiary 
or cenozoic time. They are still far from their final and com- 
plete stage. Our brain is much like the fortress-palaces so 
common and striking in certain parts of France. Their founda- 
tions are old, heavy, and strong; capable of resisting anything 
except modern artillery. The successive additions grow steadily 
lighter, more complex, more graceful, and better fitted for a 
higher civilization. So the old fundamental centres are the 
fortress foundations of the brain, the seats of endurance and 
resistance. If they are neglected or incompletely developed, 
the whole brain structure totters or collapses. They, far more 
than the higher centres, claim and require our attention through- 
out childhood. In late childhood or adolescence we can develop 
the finer powers. We see clearly that mental exercise of a logical 
sort has added only the finishing touches to the development of 
the brain." 

Dr. Ross 2 first called attention to the difference between the 
two types of structures. He wrote: "The portions of the ner- 
vous system which man possesses in common with lower animals 
and which are well developed in the human embryo of nine 
months, I shall call the fundamental part, and the portions which 
have been superadded in the course of evolution, which differ- 
entiate the nervous system of man from that of the highest 
of the lower animals, and which are either absent in the human 
embryo or exist only in an embryonic condition, I shall call the 
accessory part of the nervous system." 

Order of Degeneration. — In the progress of diseases of the 
nervous system the order of degeneration is in the reverse 
direction; that is, from accessory to fundamental. The cerebral 

1 Growth and Education, p. 45. 2 Diseases oj the Nervous System. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 123 

lobes are attacked before the lower brain centres, and the brain 
before the spinal cord. In mental dissolution the same order 
is observable. The most recent acquisitions are the most fleet- 
ing. An old man forgets the new fact learned yesterday, but can 
recite details of early life by the hour. An old man of ninety 
years of my acquaintance continually forgot the recent events, 
acquaintances formed, work done, what he had read, etc., but 
could recite verbatim almost the whole of Webster's " Old Blue- 
backed Speller." He could detail his whole life history also up 
to sixty years. The later life was vague in memory. A knowl- 
edge of this order is of great importance in the medical treatment 
of nervous diseases. If the higher centres are diseased, the case 
is not nearly so serious as when the spinal cord is involved. 

Some Pedagogical Blunders. — The pedagogic corollaries to 
be derived from the law of "from fundamental to accessory" 
are very important. In this law we have indicated the natural 
order of growth. To proceed counter to it in striving to stimu- 
late and assist growth is to invite nature's sure and condign 
punishment. A lack of knowledge of the law has led to many 
grievous errors. In the near past, and unfortunately often in the 
present, the "three r's" have been regarded as the sole means of 
educational salvation for children, and at a tender age they have 
been sent to school and at once plunged into the intricacies of 
these processes. At that stage of life the finger muscles and eye 
muscles are relatively very immature and the fine adjustments 
and co-ordinations can only be accomplished through forcing. 
Even sitting so long, and, still worse, sitting still (often with 
hands folded, sometimes behind the back!), necessitates a 
tremendous nervous strain. The kindergarten with its ideals of 
freedom of movement in theory alleviates some of the ills, but 
even this beneficent institution has been guilty of great peda- 
gogic sins. In the effort to standardize everything the play has 
become stereotyped and exacting, the motor exercises of stick- 
laying, weaving, pricking, etc., have required the manipulation 
of altogether too minute objects which the immature fingers and 
eye muscles are incapable of controlling, at least without enervat- 



124 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ing effects. Undoubtedly a whole crop of nervous disorders, 
eye strain, and debilitated systems has followed in the wake of 
pedagogic blundering. Many cases of St. Vitus dance, or 
chorea, have been directly traced to the premature use of unde- 
veloped centres. Now the wise teacher, instead of requiring the 
child to follow a microscopic copy with a fine pen with which to 
do his first scribbling, lets him go to the blackboard and execute 
large unrestricted movements with the whole arm. In my 
childhood days the school-mistress punished us for drawing 
pictures, which were always done in bold outlines, but now the 
discriminating teacher encourages this as a means of securing 
muscular control. 

Physical Growth Antecedent to Mental. — In race development 
and in normal individual development physical growth is always 
antecedent to mental. In race history man lived by brute force 
for ages before making use of his wits. In fact, for a long period 
he had little wit to exercise. Muscular strength was at a pre- 
mium and its thorough development was a necessary preliminary 
to higher brain development. A corresponding order is observ- 
able in the unfolding of the individual. The child must be a 
good animal before he can become a good scholar. Unfortu- 
nately all this is unknown or forgotten by many in the education 
of the child. The legal age for compulsory school attendance 
is usually too low and the age of permissive attendance is a 
mark of the grossest educational blundering. 

"If a function is exercised before the organs with which it is 
connected are prepared for use, by having attained to their 
development, demands are made upon them to which they are 
not prepared to respond. They are consequently overtaxed, 
and precocious exhaustion must be the inevitable result. The 
same result attends the too early use of any organ of the body. 
Take, for instance, the muscular system, which in a child is 
weak and delicate. If severe physical tasks be imposed upon 
the muscles, they not only break down but the whole organism 
of the child becomes disordered. Again, as regards the brain, 
which in early childhood is scarcely fit for any further use, so 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 125 

far as the mind is concerned, than that of receiving impressions 
of surrounding objects, if it be spurred on to the making of what 
to it are strong efforts toward acquiring knowledge, it is not long 
before the evidences of serious derangement make their appear- 
ance, and an era of suffering begins, which becomes more and 
more strongly marked with every act of mental exertion which 
the child may make." l 

The main business of the child should be to develop physically 
— to become a good animal. If he becomes a first-class animal 
with all the marks and attributes of health, strength, and vital 
capacity, he has a good foundation upon which to build a worthy 
mental — and shall we not say moral ? — superstructure. To have 
at the dawn of adolescence big lungs, firm muscles, ruddy 
cheeks, and scintillating eyes is more important than to have 
the distinction of being first in one's class in the grammar 
school. To be able to excel in running, jumping, skating, 
wrestling, and base-ball is far more to be desired in the youth 
of fourteen than to excel in mathematics and Latin. Crudity 
of speech at that time is not a stigma, but to be halting in step, 
pale and anaemic, are sorry handicaps. Professor Tyler 2 says : 
"We do not ask the baby to solve problems in mathematics or 
philosophy. We expect and desire in him only the dawn of 
mind. We ask and pray that he will eat well, sleep well, wriggle 
and cry more or less, keep healthy, and grow. This is his whole 
duty. Bodily growth is his business. For how many years is 
growth the chief business of the child ? Is it his chief business 
throughout the primary and intermediate grades? If so, what 
and how much is the school doing to promote growth during 
these years?" He further says: "A very wise and learned 
committee lays out for our schools a curriculum which does not 
assign a single period in the week to physical training, nor men- 
tion any such branch. They seem to have regarded the child 
as a disembodied spirit, or in great haste to become one. ... In 
the grammar grade is learning and mental discipline of chief 

1 Surgeon-General, New York Post-Graduate Medical School. 

2 Growth and Education, pp. 20, 21, 45, 47, 58, 90. 



126 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

importance to the girl, or is care of the body and physical exer- 
cise absolutely essential at this period ? No one seems to know, 
and very few care. What would Nature say? If we disobey 
her laws, it will cost us a heavy penalty. 'The plowing of the 
wicked is sin;' not because plowing is not excellent, but because 
it is allowed to crowd out a far more important duty. Are 
some of our educational experiments and efforts sin ? . . . 

"Brain and muscle are never divorced in the action of healthy 
higher animals or of healthy man. They should not be divorced 
in the education of the child. God has joined them together; 
let not man by any artificial system put them asunder. . . . The 
child during its earlier years should be educated far more 
through its muscles and sense organs than directly through 
the brain. Hand and eye are now more efficient means of 
intellectual development than thought or even memory. The 
young child is largely an animal. The higher mental powers 
which characterize man do not appear until about the period 
of puberty. Our chief aim should be to keep him a healthy 
animal and to promote the growth of the fundamental organs 
and powers which alone can form a firm and stable support for 
all later additions and improvements. ... Perhaps the child 
is hungry to run and we deem it better for him to sit still and try 
to think. We are attempting to exercise a centre in the brain 
which is in a stage of pure growth. The exercise does little or 
no good; it may do some or considerable harm. At the same 
time we are depriving the muscles of exercise which is absolutely 
essential to them. We neglect or fail to exercise the sensory and 
motor centres in the brain and wonder that the development of 
the higher centres is not more complete and harmonious. We 
forget that the finer muscles and the higher nervous centres 
require for their own development the highest possible efficiency 
and exercise of the fundamental parts. . . . Before eleven or 
twelve there are few really mental interests. The higher cen- 
tres of the brain are not mature enough to crave much 
exercise. The child thinks; but must think as a child, not as 
a man." 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 127 

Development of Voluntary Motor Ability. — Before birth and 
for months and even years after, the child executes a great 
many involuntary movements. His voluntary efforts are also 
sadly lacking in precision and ease. It is with difficulty that he 
learns to button his clothing, tie a knot, use scissors, manipulate 
the knife and fork, or use a pencil. 1 Idiots are notably lacking 
in precision of activities, frequently being unable to walk well, 
and still less to talk, use a pencil, tie a knot, or use a needle. 
The more fundamental the movement the better they execute 
it, and the more accessory the less the power of co-ordination. 

Dr. Bryan 2 made a careful and extended series of observations 
upon the development of voluntary motor ability and gained 
some valuable data upon this question. He arranged a series 
of exercises in which children from six to sixteen tapped- with the 
finger, using successively only the finger muscles, those of the 
wrist, elbow, and the shoulders. He ascertained that in both 
boys and girls the elbow and shoulder movements showed more 
maturity than those of the wrist and the finger. His results 
showed that at six the power of co-ordination of finger move- 
ments is decidedly less than at sixteen. The finger acquires 
ability in precision and rapidity largely after nine or ten years. 
In Dr. Bryan's words, "These results show that the shoulder 
grows most slowly and the elbow slightly faster, the wrist and 
finger very much more rapidly." Certainly this is very signifi- 
cant concerning the age at which to begin writing, piano-playing, 
and similar activities. 

Close observation of children discloses to us that there is a 
frequent twitching of the peripheral muscles, such as those of 
the hand, the foot, the eye, various muscles of the face, and even 
the peripheral muscles of the skin. These twitchings continue 
during sleep. The eye, for example, is never absolutely still. 
In early infancy they are much more noticeable than at a later 
stage. They are perfectly normal phenomena and simply show 

1 This will be more fully discussed in the sections dealing with motor training 
and will development. 

2 " On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability," Am. Jour, of Psych., 
5 : 125-204. 



128 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the immaturity and relative racial immaturity of these classes 
of muscles and of the centres controlling them. As the child 
grows older and the nervous mechanism becomes more perfected 
they gradually disappear from notice, although even in adult 
life the eye twitchings and other slight vibrations may be noticed 
by the careful observer. An interesting study of inhibition was 
made by Curtis, who found that the ordinary child cannot sit 
still more than thirty seconds, and children from five to ten years 
not more than one minute and one-half. What a cruel "break- 
ing-in" he gets in the six hours of a school day! * 

Professor Hancock conducted a series of experiments requir- 
ing children ranging from five to seven years to thread a needle, 
tie a string, hold the arm horizontally, suppress twitching move- 
ments, tap with the fingers, etc., and concluded that children 
can easily learn to make movements involving the large muscles, 
but that the finer co-ordinations come later. The order seems 
to be: body, shoulder, arm, forearm, hand. Control of the 
index finger is gained before the others. 2 

Some interesting and instructive observations and experiments 
have been made upon idiots. They are notably deficient in the 
finer co-ordinations. Dr. Ireland writes: 3 "The best and 
earliest sign of idiocy is the deficiency of grasp. The hand 
is flapped or vibrated about instead of being employed to seize 
or obtain an object. Imbeciles are clumsy in the use of the 
hands, and it is difficult to teach them any exercise or handi- 
craft requiring method and dexterity. Even imbeciles . . . are 
generally very inexpert at such exercises as catching a ball, or 
aiming at anything, and it is difficult to teach them greater 
dexterity." 

Application to Training Feeble-Minded. — A knowledge of the 
order of development has completely revolutionized the methods 
of training idiots. Formerly it was thought that the way out of 
darkness led through the reading-book and the spelling-book, 

1 "Inhibition," Ped. Sent., vol. VI, p. 93. 

2 "A Study of Motor Ability," Ped. Sem., vol. Ill, pp. 9-29. 

3 Blot on the Brain, p. 64, 2d edition. (Italics mine.) 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 129 

and so the first attempts were directed toward the formal school 
arts. The results were what we might expect. If not positively 
harmful, they were certainly the least desirable means of educa- 
tion. Now, instead of beginning with such accessory activities, 
teachers of the feeble-minded begin with the simplest possible 
bodily movements involving the largest and most fundamental 
muscles of the body. They are taught to walk, to run, to stand, 
to climb, throw, row, jump, and engage in plays and games. 
At first no exercises involving fine co-ordinations are required. 
Gradually more complex exercises are introduced. Only after 
vigorous bodily health, muscular tone, and a reasonable motor 
control have been secured are the traditional school arts intro- 
duced. Our schools for normal children have learned and may 
well learn valuable hints from a study of the feeble-minded. 

Order in Psychic Development. — In the realm of higher and 
more formal mental education the same law will apply, although 
the exact order of appearance is not so well defined. It has long 
been understood that sense knowledge should precede more 
complex thought processes. The race lived a life of sense per- 
ception long before higher processes of elaborate thought were 
developed. Associations between sensory experiences and motor 
reactions in securing food, warding off enemies, providing shelter, 
furthering pleasures, and avoiding pains were sufficient for the 
needs of the time. Gradually more complex and far-sighted 
schemes were evolved and finer co-ordinations made necessary 
in shaping tools, producing pictures, and constructing more 
accurately the implements and articles used. 

Similarly the child is contented with sensory experiences and 
immediate reactions upon his environment. Naturally his asso- 
ciations are of a relatively simple type. His reasonings are 
crude. Causes and effects are confused, as, for example, the 
boy of three said: "Let us hurry because the trees make the 
wind blow and it will be cold in the park." The child lives in 
the present. A single stick of candy to-day is more treasured 
than five promised to-morrow. At this period he learns things 
mechanically with ease, acquires isolated facts without noting 



i 3 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

or establishing relations among them. Should this not caution 
us against the premature introduction of scientific relations, 
abstract formulae, and abstractions of grammar? Facts of 
nature may be learned readily, but obscure scientific principles 
must be delayed. Grammar is ordinarily introduced too early 
in the curriculum, abstruse arithmetical deductions should give 
way in the first six years of school to the simplest facts and 
processes, and these should be so well drilled into the children's 
nervous systems as to make the operations automatic. These 
scientific facts, the data of biography and history, a knowledge 
of reading and writing, facts of geography and travel, ability to 
draw, to sing, to fashion various things in the manual arts, 
together with a strong body, supple muscles, big lungs, and a 
clean, healthy, unaffected mind should be the capital of a boy 
or a girl at the close of the grammar school course. Later 
schooling and life will give significance to these, establish new 
relations, evolve from them scientific laws and principles. They 
will also be the tools for acquiring and furnish an apperceptive 
background for future conquests of knowledge. 1 

Adaptation of Curriculum to Stages of Growth. — It is highly 
important that the educator be able to determine accurately the 
different periods in childhood and youth and clearly recognize 
their characters. Educational means must be adapted to the 
varying periods of development. One of the greatest pedagog- 
ical sins has been in the lack of adaptation of work to the needs 
of the varying periods of development. Abstract grammar and 
arithmetic have been placed in early childhood, but they are 
more fitted for university study. The child mind demands 
concrete instruction, that which appeals to sense perception and 
not to abstract reason. To invert the order is to sin against 
child nature. The period of the grammar school and the 
years preceding are periods of gathering rather than of organiza- 
tion; periods of sensory training rather than the development 

1 For a full and critical discussion of the entire topic, see Burk, " From Funda- 
mental to Accessory in the Development of the Nervous System and of Move- 
ments," Am. Jour. 0} Psych., vol. VI, pp. 5-64. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 131 

of reason. During this period, association fibres are forming 
in the brain and when they are fully established the reasoning 
processes may be cultivated, and not before. 

Ross wrote apropos of this, that "until a few years ago the 
natural order of development was reversed in education, so far 
as this could be accomplished by human contrivance and 
ingenuity. . . . No sooner had what is technically called edu- 
cation begun than the professional trainer began to exercise the 
small muscles of vocalization and articulation, so as to acquire 
the art of reading; the small muscles of the hand, so as to acquire 
the art of writing; and, in the case of young ladies, the still 
more complicated movements necessary in running over the key- 
board of the piano; while little attention was paid to the develop- 
ment of the larger muscles of the trunk and lower extremities, 
upon the full development of which the future comfort of the 
individual depends." 

Illustration in Speech Development. — Hartwell 1 urged the 
importance of noting that in speech development there are at 
least three levels of growth. "The organs of respiration are the 
most central or fundamental of the series. The organs of 
phonation, which give vocal character to the stream of expired 
air from the lungs, are intermediate, and their neural mechan- 
isms are, therefore, to be considered as accessory in comparison 
with those of the breathing organs, but relatively fundamental 
in comparison with the centres which represent the movements 
of the more peripheral organs of articulation. It is indisputably 
certain that the young child learns to breathe and cry aloud 
before it can speak, and that there is a progressive development 
in his power to imitate and reproduce the consonant sounds, 
after he has begun to speak. It seems to me that we may safely 
aver that the law of the evolution of the nervous system is of 
great pedagogical importance, since it suggests the natural order 
which should be followed in training the organs concerned in 
any complex co-ordinated movements. For instance, it is trans- 
gressing the laws of nature to emphasize the training of the 

1 Addresses and Proceedings, International Congress of Education, 1893, p. 743. 



132 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

fingers before the neuromuscular mechanisms of the hand, 
arm, and shoulder have become thoroughly organized, and their 
respective movements been brought under control; or to attempt 
to teach a child to read aloud before he has learned to speak 
plainly and readily. Dr. H. Gutzmann declares that in fully 
half of the children who enter school the power of speech is 
undeveloped." 

Errors in Teaching Arithmetic. — The law has been grossly 
violated in the teaching of arithmetic. While the young child 
is able to acquire concepts of number and its relations through 
concrete and objective teaching, he is entirely unprepared for 
the abstract reasoning. Teachers often require the child to 
talk about profound number concepts only possible of compre- 
hension by adults and require him to tattle the forms of reason- 
ing. But it is a delusion to think that the child really grasps the 
abstractions. His knowledge is confined to what he gains 
through imagery of concrete relations and to a purely mechanical 
memory of processes that he has learned. In a good many 
schools the experiment has been tried of omitting all formal 
arithmetic during the first two years of school. All experiments 
have shown that children who omitted the formal work were 
just as well advanced in arithmetic by the end of the fourth year 
as those who had taken the subject four years. Of course, 
number concepts and easy processes of addition, subtraction, 
multiplication, and division should be acquired. The former 
must be learned through sense perception and imagery, the 
latter largely mechanically. Reasoning processes should be 
deferred until the child's brain cells and association fibres have 
developed sufficiently. We know that a child begins to walk 
when the zones controlling locomotion are mature, to talk when 
speech centres become functional, and it is no less certain that 
complex reasoning processes must await the proper develop- 
ment of the frontal cerebral lobes and the proper association 
fibres. 

Order in Geometry. — Spencer pointed out a very important 
truth in the teaching of geometry, which unfortunately is too 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 133 

little known and heeded. He observed that most geometry 
taught to boys first is the demonstrative type. Deduction is a 
mental method which develops late. Induction is the funda- 
mental method, deduction accessory. Before taking the ordi- 
nary demonstrative, deductive geometry the child should have 
an opportunity to study form and space relations, objectively, 
concretely, arriving at many conclusions the truth of which he 
cannot then fully test but which must be reserved for later con- 
sideration. Paper-cutting, cardboard work, moulding, modelling, 
constructing from various materials, drawing, measuring, super- 
imposing, etc., should find large place in the elementary curric- 
ulum. There is no reason why the concepts of two-thirds of 
the various geometric forms, magnitudes, and relations usually 
learned in the high school should not become familiar in the 
elementary and grammar-school course. Demonstrative work 
should be reserved for much later consideration. 

Mistakes in Teaching Grammar. — In teaching grammar a 
similar mistake has been committed. Grammatical abstractions 
have been forced upon children at a time when their minds were 
prepared only for concrete ideas. We have forgotten that 
grammar is the science of language and that science is a subject 
for mature minds only. Language as a means of communicat- 
ing and receiving ideas has been a very fundamental accomplish- 
ment in the race. In the individual's development it is likewise 
exceedingly fundamental. The science of language — grammar 
— has been very accessory both in phylogenetic and in onto- 
genetic development. The school-master should heed this. 
From three to twelve the child is in a nascent period for acquiring 
spoken language. During that period a normal child will 
acquire a mastery of the elements of two or three spoken lan- 
guages besides the mother tongue. Instead of exercising this 
instinct and aiding the child to acquire what is fundamental to 
a scientific knowledge of grammar, we arrest development both 
by failing to give appropriate opportunity and also by premature 
attempts to develop powers that are as yet largely germinal. 

Spencer regards as an "intensely stupid custom, the teaching 



134 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of grammar to children." He regards grammar as "not the 
stepping-stone but the finishing instrument," and says that 
"Grammar and syntax are a collection of laws and rules. 
Rules are gathered from practice; they are the results of induc- 
tion to which we come by long observation and comparison of 
facts. It is, in fine, the science, the philosophy of language. 
In following the process of nature, neither individuals nor nations 
ever arrive at the science^-?/. A language is spoken, and poetry 
written, many years before either a grammar or prosody is even 
thought of. Men did not wait till Aristotle had constructed his 
logic, to reason. In short, as grammar was made after language, 
so ought it to be taught after language : an inference which all 
who recognize the relationship between the evolution of the 
race and of the individual will see to be unavoidable." x 

Natural Science. — Natural science teaching has been very 
poorly done and the cause has suffered much by failure to detect 
what has been fundamental in race development and then to 
apply the law in teaching individuals. Scientific concepts are 
abstract. They have been wrought out by mature minds and 
cannot be grasped by the immature minds of children. No 
wonder that "nature study" has failed to be satisfactory in the 
schools. Thousands of concrete facts are at hand in which 
children would be interested if only presented in a manner suited 
to their comprehension. But many teachers of nature study at 
the outset seek a book and require children to memorize defini- 
tions, acquire statements of concepts beyond their comprehen- 
sion, and to classify and systematize the subject. All this means 
the study of abstract science, something which should come 
much later. The child should acquire sensory knowledge of a 
wide range of objective facts before he attempts to classify, 
systematize, and define. When he has something to systematize 
it will be soon enough to do that. The facts are fundamental, 
scientific classification is accessory. 

Even in the high school the accessories of botany, zoology, 
and physics are often emphasized instead of the fundamentals. 

1 Education, p. 106. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 135 

The teacher is frequently one who has acquired all he knows 
of the subject from books, or being fresh from college he presents 
his subject from the same stand-point as it was presented to him. 
In either case the results are disappointing. The teacher of 
science must be saturated with devices which he has gained at 
first hand for making the subject alive because concrete and 
because it is adapted to the stage of development of the particu- 
lar boys and girls before him. Dr. Hall has inoculated science 
teachers with a new ideal and everywhere books and teachers 
are suggesting new points of view. He writes: 1 "The 
normal boy in the teens is essentially in the popular science age. 
He wants and needs great wholes, facts in profusion, but few 
formulae. He would go far to see scores and hundreds of demon- 
strative experiments made in physics, and would like to repeat 
them in his own imperfect and perhaps even clumsy way with- 
out being bothered by equations. He is often a walking interro- 
gation-point about ether, atoms, X-rays, nature of electricity, 
motors of many kinds, with a native gravity of his mind toward 
those frontier questions where even the great masters know as 
little as he. He is in the questioning age, but wants only answers 
that are vague, brief, but above all suggestive; and in all this 
he is true to the great law that the development of the individual 
in any line of culture tends to repeat the history of the race in 
that field. 

"Last, and perhaps most important of all for our purpose 
to-day, the high-school boy is in the stage of beginning to be a 
utilitarian. The age of pure science has not come for him, but 
applications, though not logically first, precede in the order of 
growth and interest the knowledge of laws, forms, and abstrac- 
tions. He would know how the trolley, how wired and wireless 
telegraphy work, and the steam engine, the applications of 
mechanics in the intricate mechanisms, almost any of even the 
smaller straps and buckles in the complex harnesses science has 
put upon natural force, charm him. Physics in the field, the 
street, the shop, the factory, the great triumphs of engineering 

1 Adolescence, vol. II, p. 156. 



136 * PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

skill, civil, mining, mechanical, inventions in their embryo 
stage, processes, aerial navigation, power developed from waves, 
vortexes, molecules, atoms, all these things which make man's 
reaction to nature a wonder book, should be opened to him; 
and, in frequent conversations and copious information, we 
should arouse his imagination, for this is the organ of the heart 
and opens up the way for reason. The boyhood of the great 
makers of physics and astronomy, who have found out and 
opened a natural way for their own genius, is a lesson which 
most teachers of physics, I fear, have not enough profited by. 
The subject-matter of their curriculum is too condensed, too 
highly peptonized for healthful assimilation; and we are too 
prone to forget that we can only accelerate nature's way, but 
never short-circuit it without violence." 

Fundamentals in Music. — Music teaching in the schools, 
though rapidly being placed on a more natural basis, was for a 
time in great danger of being a menace instead of a blessing. 
As soon as it was given a place in the schools, teachers began to 
provide ultra-logically arranged courses. They sought for text- 
books to put in the hands of the children, and the publishers, 
with an eye to business, . immediately provided them. The 
method became hypernormalized, and was in great danger of 
becoming thus crystallized, when child-study experts raised their 
voices in protest. Thanks to the new doctrines, a more scientific 
view-point has been glimpsed by many music supervisors and 
music bids fair to occupy an important place in education. 

According to the logical method, children are first required to 
learn note reading — the science of music. They are even re- 
quired to write music. For these kinds of work they are wholly 
unprepared. While they are right in the nascent stage for 
learning to sing songs by rote — to make music a means of emo- 
tional expression, in many schools they are given no opportunity 
to do this until after mastering the science. The result is that 
under such methods few ever acquire any taste for expressing 
themselves in song. Children should be allowed and encour- 
aged to lift up their hearts and voices in joy, praise, and thanks- 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 137 

giving. The beginning of musical education should be in 
allowing the child to make a joyful noise unto the Lord! The 
most cursory observation of plantation negroes should tell us 
what is most fundamental in music. The wonderful results 
attained by that apparently hap-hazard method ought to give 
us food for reflection. In Germany no factor so much as early 
training in singing has contributed to the development of fealty 
to fatherland. Everybody is encouraged to sing — school- 
children, university students, soldiers, sailors, the peasants in 
the fields — all sing. People have sung for ages. All primitive 
peoples sing. Rhythmic motion and song are among the most 
primitive fundamental forms of social expression. Written 
music is a very late invention—relatively accessory. Education 
should heed the lesson. Most assuredly children should have 
an opportunity to learn the science of music as well as the 
sciences of arithmetic, grammar, and physics, but like those it 
should come after the fundamental facts have been acquired as 
an art. In many schools the order of procedure has been, and 
is still being, reversed. Happily, a better movement has begun. 
Drawing. — Drawing is another subject in which the natural 
order of development has been violated. The system in vogue 
until a few years ago was one based wholly on logical considera- 
tions. The first exercises consisted of the attempt to construct 
a straight line. After practice on isolated straight lines, com- 
binations were made into a surface drawing, and later a repre- 
sentation of a solid. Curved lines were taken up similarly and 
the various isolated elements synthesized into combinations of 
some sort. Usually for a long time the combinations repre- 
sented no particular object, sometimes purely conventional 
designs. No attempt at representing objects was permitted 
until all the elements were supposedly mastered. That is, the 
grammar of the science was the starting-point; the use of draw- 
ing as a mode of expression of ideas was the end to be later 
achieved. That few ever became artists under this system, and 
that many became disgusted, is well known by those who partici- 
pated in it. 



138 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

At the present time, thanks to child study, the whole view- 
point is changed. A study of the art of primitive peoples and of 
children show r s conclusively that the art impulse develops genet- 
ically, not logically. The savage man and the child begin 
pencilling, not because they wish to study the science of drawing, 
but because they have something in their minds which they wish 
to express. Ideo-motor processes growing out of visual images 
prompt them almost reflexly to utilize drawing as a means 
of expression. Here is the starting-point. First a rude pencil- 
ling of something which they are prompted to express; a rep- 
resentation of an object-whole — imperfect at first, of course. 
Just as in learning to walk and to talk the child does not begin 
analytically, he does not begin analytically to draw. This comes 
later when he studies the processes scientifically. Teachers of 
writing have also hindered the progress of children and created 
distaste by analyzing the letters altogether too early and requir- 
ing perfection before employing writing as a means of expression. 
Spencer pointed out the absurdities and vices of teaching draw- 
ing by the logical method. He wrote: 1 " It has been well said 
concerning the custom of prefacing the art of speaking any 
tongue by a drilling in the parts of speech and their functions, 
that it is about as reasonable as prefacing the art of walking 
by a course of lessons on the bones, muscles, and nerves of the 
legs; and much the same thing may be said of the proposal to 
preface the art of representing objects by a nomenclature and 
definitions of the lines which they yield, on analysis." 

In illustration of the whole sequence of development, Spencer 
has given us a few suggestive principles of procedure, which 
have been widely quoted, but unfortunately too little understood. 
They are the following: 2 

1. Proceed from the simple to the complex. — He says that like 
everything else, the mind grows from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous. Only a few of the mind's powers are active at 
first. The others unfold gradually. Consequently, instruction 
should begin with the simplest elements and gradually include 

1 Education, p. 144. z Education, p. 120. 



FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY 139 

additional ones. All these elements should be carried on 
abreast. Or, as Comenius contended, the elements of all sub- 
jects should be begun early and gradually widened in their extent 
and complexity. This is approximately the spiral plan of the 
Germans. 

2. Instruction should proceed from the concrete to the abstract. — 
He says with truth that "unfortunately there has been much 
misunderstanding on this point. General formulas which men 
have devised to express groups of details, and which have 
severally simplified their conceptions by uniting many facts into 
one fact, they have supposed must simplify the conceptions of 
the child also; quite forgetting that a generalization is simple 
only in comparison with the whole mass of particular truths it 
comprehends — that it is more complex than any one of these 
truths taken singly — that only after many of these single truths 
have been acquired does the generalization ease the memory 
and help the reason — and that to the child not possessing these 
single truths it is necessarily a mystery." He shows how 
teachers continually err by setting out with "first principles" 
rather than with examples which should lead up to the principles. 
Rote teaching, giving of rules and generalizations before facts 
and processes out of which general notions or concepts are 
elaborated, as Spencer hinted, is altogether too common a pro- 
cedure. " General truths," he wrote, "to be of due and perma- 
nent use, must be earned." They must be born in each indi- 
vidual's own mind and grow out of the individual experiences 
acquired through the learner's self-activity. 1 

1 See further the chapter on "Induction," and McMurry's Method of the 
Recitation. 



CHAPTER VIII 
INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 

Illustrations and Meaning of Instinct. — It is a matter of com- 
mon observation that the lower animals perform many activities 
without any previous training on the part of the individual. 
These activities apparently are performed in a definite and uni- 
form manner by all members of the species. Among typical 
illustrations we may cite the beaver building its dam when of a 
certain age, at a certain time of the year, and in a tolerably 
definite manner. The wild-goose migrates southward every 
year, and again in the spring its well-known honk may be heard 
as the flock seeks northern latitudes. Honey-bees build their 
comb in an apparently invariable way from year to year; wasps, 
bumblebees, yellow-jackets, hornets, each have characteristic 
ways of constructing their' nests and of gathering food. Birds 
of a given species build nests peculiar to themselves; dogs bury 
bones; hyenas are ever vigilant; cats play with captured mice; 
cattle, deer, and other animals, are afraid of red objects, etc. 
Many animals possess at birth, or almost immediately after, 
fully developed reactions for food-getting, and many exhibit 
very early attempts at self-protection from supposed foes. The 
foregoing activities are denominated as instinctive, and instinct 
may be defined in a preliminary way as follows: Instinct is an 
inborn tendency on the part of a given individual to act in a 
certain way under given stimuli without any foresight (neces- 
sarily) of the end to be accomplished, and without any previous 
education on the part of the individual. 

Marshall 1 has given the following discriminating definition: 
"Instincts are forces within us which are organic, which appear 

1 Instinct and Reason, p. 68. 
/ 140 

/ 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 141 

in us because we are organisms; which lead us to undertake, 
without forethought, actions of a very complex nature involving 
the movement of many parts of the body in relations which are 
more or less fixed, actions which, as the biologists say, are more 
or less thoroughly co-ordinated." He illumined the question 
still further by saying * that, " Our instincts are springs of action 
which exist within the organism: our instinct actions occur 
because we are organisms, and because as organisms we inherit 
with our organic structure habits of action which lead to the 
attainment of certain ends which have significance for the 
organism; and we inherit these habits in general because our 
ancestors have become better adapted to their environment in 
consequence of the recurrence of these tendencies to act in 
certain specific ways upon the appearance of appropriate 
stimuli." 

Paulsen wrote of instinct: "The bee knows nothing of the 
brood of winter, and has no insight into the processes of nutrition; 
she is guided in all her activity, in her search for blossoms, the 
construction of her cells, the feeding of her offspring, by percep- 
tions and traces of recollection, which are represented physio- 
logically as nervous processes and dispositions." 2 In other 
words, instincts are race habits, impulses, or tendencies toward 
activity in a given direction because of ancestral experience 
which has become so implanted in the race as to make its 
appearance in the individual a matter wholly reflex in character. 
The animal acts in a given way because its nervous mechanism 
functions in a predetermined manner. 

Not Individual Education or Prevision. — It is a popular notion 
that animals which exhibit instincts possess a clear foresight of 
the ends to be accomplished. "If the bee did not know that it 
must store up honey for a certain purpose, why should it be so 
diligent?" "Why should the beaver build its dam if not for 
definite self-protection and for protection of the expected 
young ? " " Why should the ant store up food except for the long 
winter?" (It is not because the ant is lethargic all winter and 

1 Instinct and Reason, p. 219. 2 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 114. 



142 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

needs no food.) Apparently common sense has a case against 
us. But we could cite much evidence to show that the same 
animals perform instinctive actions when there is absolutely no 
possibility of such foresight. Among cases which show the 
utter irrationality of instinctive actions the following are typical: 
Well-fed domesticated dogs will bury bones, old shoes, etc., 
when no necessity exists for providing against future contingen- 
cies. They will do these things without having had a chance to 
imitate other dogs. As all farmers know, hens will often spend 
much valuable time in sitting for weeks upon a rude nest with a 
china egg and acting as important and cross as if the mother of 
a brood of a dozen. Hens hatched in incubators and without 
opportunity to imitate the act will perform it just as certainly 
and naturally as if such opportunity had existed. Now were 
the act rational and not reflex no hen would exhibit such stupid- 
ity. Its organism was simply keyed in a certain manner and 
it had to act in harmony with such demands. 

Lloyd Morgan cites the case of the Yucca moth, which per- 
forms certain activities but once in a lifetime and those without 
any possibility of education. The insects emerge from their 
chrysalis-cases just when the flower opens, each for a single night. 
From the anthers of one of these flowers the female moth collects 
the golden pollen and in the pistil of another deposits her eggs 
among the ovules. The action seems to be the result of fore- 
knowledge. This fertilization of the flower is as necessary as 
the fertilization of clover blossoms by bumblebees. "These 
marvellously adaptive instinctive activities of the Yucca moth 
are performed but once in her life, and that without instruction, 
with no opportunities of learning by imitation, and, apparently, 
without prevision of what will be the outcome of her behavior; 
for she has no experience of the subsequent fate of the eggs she 
lays, and cannot be credited with any knowledge of the effect of 
the pollen upon the ovules." 1 There are numberless cases of 
insects which pass through various metamorphoses, that per- 
form perfectly and almost invariably certain activities, although 

1 Habit and Instinct, p. 14. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 143 

none of a given generation have ever seen any of a preceding 
generation. 

Habits, Reflexes, and Instincts Compared. — A habit is a 
resultant of the education of the individual, while instincts are 
the resultants of accumulated race experiences. These experi- 
ences are conserved and accumulated through natural and 
artificial selection and, according to eminent authorities like 
Romanes, through the transmission of acquired characters. 
This last view is as strongly denied by able men like Weismann. 
To produce a habit the individual must repeat a given series of 
actions a sufficient number of times to establish an easy path- 
way of discharge in the nervous system. Instinctive tendencies 
often have a marked influence in facilitating the formation of 
some habits. 

Reflex action is non- voluntary and usually controlled by lower 
centres of the nervous system and not by the higher brain centres. 
I touch a hot stove. An impulse is sent toward the cortex, but 
when it reaches the spinal cord a current there generated inner- 
vates the muscle, causing me to withdraw my hand. In reflec- 
tive, voluntary action the higher brain centres are brought into 
requisition. In a reflex the response to a stimulus is indefinite. 
The reaction may b« for the good of the individual or it may not. 
It may or may not accomplish an apparently determined end, 
as in winking to avoid injury to the eye. The line of demarca- 
tion between the two is not sharply drawn. Undoubtedly many 
apparently purely individual reflexes have much of the instinctive 
element in them, and all instinctive actions are of the reflex 
type. Spencer has denominated instinct as compound reflex 
action. According to this interpretation the difference may be 
explained in the words of Lloyd Morgan: "Reflex acts are 
local responses due to specialized stimuli, while instinctive 
activities are matters of more general behavior and usually in- 
volving a larger measure of central (as opposed to merely local 
or ganglionic) co-ordination, and due to the more widely spread 
effects of stimuli in which both external and internal factors co- 
operate." 



i 4 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

"It would seem, therefore, that, whereas a reflex act — such, 
for example, as the winking of the eye when an object is seen to 
approach it rapidly — is a restricted and localized response, in- 
volving a particular organ or a definite group of muscles, and is 
initiated by a more or less specialized external stimulus; an 
instinctive activity is a response of the organism as a whole, and 
involves the co-operation of several organs and many groups of 
muscles. Initiated by an external stimulus or a group of stim- 
uli, it is, at any rate in many cases, determined also in greater 
degree than reflex action by an internal factor which causes un- 
easiness or distress, more or less marked, if it do not find its 
normal instinctive satisfaction." l 

Instincts not Invariable. — It has been a popular notion that 
instincts are fixed and invariable in a given species in all its 
individuals and through successive generations. Nothing could 
be further from the truth. Instead of coming ready-made once 
for all, we find that they are products of evolutionary forces. 
They come into existence, are subject to modifications, and may 
atrophy or decay, leaving only vestigial evidence or none what- 
soever of their existence. 

Marshall says that: 2 "The definiteness and the invariability 
of the co-ordination of these actions are relative definiteness and 
relative invariability only. This became evident when it was 
noted that the efficiency of many instincts even of the lower types 
depends upon the trend of the activities they induce even where 
there is a certain degree of variation in circumstances of stimula- 
tion, or in the stimuli themselves, and consequently in the reac- 
tions to these stimuli. The reader will remember that we 
illustrated this fact by recalling to his mind the variations of 
action and co-ordination noted in the young chick in its instinc- 
tive search for food supply; the general end being reached 
through slightly varying co-ordinations of action. 

" It will also be remembered that as we studied instincts of a 
higher type we found less definiteness and invariability of 
reaction, and a marked preponderance of cases where the 

1 Habit and Instinct, p. 7. 2 Instinct and Reason, p. 219. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 145 

guidance of our actions to the production of certain ends is 
attained by the strengthening of trends of action which come to 
persist through many differences of stimulation and through 
many variations of reaction." 

Genesis of Instincts. — Instincts are impulses resulting from 
the conservation of habits through heredity. Any memory im- 
plies habit in the making. The fact of the preservation of a 
tendency to react at a subsequent time in a way that the organ- 
ism has acted before is the beginning of a habit. If the activities 
are repeated a sufficient number of times a genuine habit is 
formed. This habit means a reflex tendency to react in a sim- 
ilar way at subsequent times on similar occasions. If the habit 
becomes thoroughly ingrained and children are born subse- 
quent to its formation, the tendency is transmitted. This he- 
reditary tendency or impulse is an instinct. If the given habit 
becomes wide-spread in the species and important to their exist- 
ence, it comes in time to be a race habit, or, as it has been de- 
nominated, an instinct. All habits are in fact pseudo-instincts, 
as Marshall has termed them. 

It is not necessary that habits become universal in a species 
in order to become instinctive, although the universality of pos- 
session of a habit is a general criterion of an instinct. There are 
what may be termed race, national and family instincts. These 
are characteristics sufficiently universalized to produce the he- 
reditary tendencies in a given line of descent. We speak with 
perfect psychological propriety of the phlegmatic German, the 
emotional Frenchman, the stoic Indian, etc. Similarly we may 
recognize instinctive family tendencies. These are often so 
strong as to mark a given family in a striking manner. Because 
of the origin of instincts it follows, even, that each individual 
has some instinctive tendencies peculiar to himself. The 
streams of heredity have united in such a way as to make the 
resultants peculiar to each individual. In fact no two individu- 
als are exactly alike. Their instincts function at varying times, 
in different degrees of power, are modified by education in dif- 
ferent ways; in fact, present manifold un-uniformities. 



146 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Instincts Modified through Environment. — Although the 
functioning of instincts is primarily dependent upon the maturity 
of the organism which causes at the proper time impulsive 
promptings to action, yet the influence of environment must not 
be overlooked. The time of building the honeycomb, the time 
when the beaver builds its dam, the time when the wild-goose 
will fly northward, the time when the parental instincts are to 
manifest themselves, are mainly inherent within the organisms 
themselves. The organisms are in a measure like machines 
with time alarms. When development has reached a certain 
point, when the springs have been compressed to a certain 
tension, release is sure to occur. However, environment may 
hasten, retard, or even entirely inhibit functioning. The kind 
of weather, altitude, latitude, amount of sunlight, moisture, etc., 
all affect the time of flowering and the fruiting periods of plants. 
Climate, latitude, and conditions of nutrition affect the time 
of maturity in animals and human beings. It is well known 
that peoples in torrid zones mature and decline earlier than in 
temperate zones. The difference between the ordinary worker 
bees and the queen of the hive is largely one of nutrition. All 
the workers possess potentialities which if nourished would 
have caused them to develop into maternal bees. Within the 
first eight days of existence the larvae destined to become workers 
could by such feeding as the queen larvae receive, be developed 
into sexually-perfect queens, capable of reproduction. When a 
queen dies, the workers by royal feeding develop a queen from 
worker larvae. The potentialities of either worker or queen are 
inherited, and the particular development is determined by a 
little more or less nourishment. 

House martens now build their nests beneath the eaves 
of houses while formerly they lived in rocky haunts. Barn 
swallows also build their mud abodes beneath the eaves of barns. 
This they cannot have done long because barns are a modern 
invention. Chimney swallows must have had a different method 
of nest-building before the invention of chimneys. Domestic 
ducks in Ceylon have lost their former natural love for water 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 147 

and are entirely terrestrial in their habits, while some other 
ducks have been known to forsake their marshy haunts and build 
their nests in trees, bringing their young to the water on their 
backs. Certain species of Australian parrots that were honey- 
feeders have become fat-feeders since the development of the 
sheep industry which enables them to prey upon the carcasses 
of dead sheep. They have learned to select unerringly certain 
portions of the carcass which afford the choicest morsels. The 
polar bear has learned to bite its prey instead of hugging as 
other bears do. Many transformations in process in whales, 
seals, dolphins, etc., were alluded to in a former section. 

Darwin said apropos of this: x "Hardly any animal is more 
difficult to tame than the young of the wild rabbit; scarcely any 
animal is tamer than the young of the tame rabbit; but I can 
hardly suppose that domestic rabbits have often been selected 
for tameness alone; so that we must attribute at least the 
greater part of the inherited change from extreme wildness to ex- 
treme tameness, to habit and long-continued close confinement." 

Modification of Instincts through Education. — The domestica- 
tion of wild animals affords a vast array of most important illus- 
trations of the transformation of habits, instincts, and even of 
structure. The testimony should be very suggestive of the 
possibilities of race transformation in the human species. 
Domestic horses have lost most of their primitive wildness and 
the new instincts of docility render them of inestimable service 
to man. The cat in its wild state is one of the fiercest and most 
untamable of creatures, but once domesticated it is one of the 
gentlest, and most attached to man. It is a far cry from the 
fierceness and restlessness of the wolf and the jackal to the do- 
mestic dog, but the ancestry of the latter can easily be traced to 
the former. Contrast the sneaking, ferocious denizens of the 
forest with well-bred shepherd or Newfoundland dogs which 
display such affection, fidelity, and sagacity in protecting the 
interests of their masters. Even among domestic dogs we find 
great plasticity and variability of instincts and structure — all 

1 Origin of Species, p. 211. 



148 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the result of definite attempts to produce and conserve desira- 
ble characteristics. Think of the special instincts of the New- 
foundland as compared with the greyhound; those of the collie 
with pointers and setters; and each of these as compared with 
pugs, poodles, and terriers. Each shows the results of genera- 
tions of education, conservation, and selection. 

Should there be any tendency to raise objections that many of 
these special characteristics are the result of individual training 
rather than instinct, it must be emphasized again that the special 
tendencies of different breeds show themselves unfailingly even 
when the dogs are isolated from all others when young. Romanes 
shows conclusively how young coach-dogs will spontaneously run 
around and bark at horses, how pointers will point, and setters 
will set. He even shows how special traits come to be inherited 
in particular families of dogs. He quotes from Darwin's MSS. 
the following: "The Rev. W. Darwin Fox tells me that he had 
a Skye terrier which when begging rapidly moved her paws in a 
way very different from that of any other dog which he had ever 
seen; her puppy, which never could have seen her mother beg, 
now when full grown performs the same peculiar movement 
exactly in the same way." 1 In speaking of the tumbling instinct 
peculiar to certain pigeons, he remarks much to the point: "It 
would be as impossible to teach one kind of pigeon to tumble 
as to teach another kind to innate its crop to the enormous 
size which the pouter pigeon habitually does." 2 In time the 
world will come to understand that functions, and among them 
instinctive functions, are as distinctly heritable as structures, and 
moreover, that they begin, grow, and develop in precisely the 
same way. 

Instincts and Intelligence in Animals. — Although the lower 
animals possess a large number of ready-made instinctive reac- 
tions which they utilize in their life activities, yet it must not be 
concluded that all their actions are blind and that nothing of 
rationality is manifested. Instincts are the fundamental guiding 
powers, but intelligence, often of a high degree, modifies and 

1 Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 186 and 189. 2 Ibid. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 149 

to some extent determines the particular direction in which the 
action shall issue. Even the lowest animals add to instinct 
through education which the vicissitudes of environment make 
necessary. This education further lays hold of and, to some 
degree, controls the instincts. Of course, the types of reaction 
are determined by latent potentialities, but the details often 
exhibit great inhibition and control. Romanes's entire volume 
on animal intelligence is a forceful argument against the theory 
of blind instinct dominating the life of the lower animals. Many 
marvellous adaptations which could only result from intelligence 
are recorded by Romanes, Sir John Lubbock, Lloyd Morgan, 
and many other writers of reputation. Even in man shall we 
not say that the types of reaction are largely predetermined by 
race habits? The applications, however, become so controlled 
by the life of reason and the directions so complex as to obscure 
their origins. 

To show that the instincts of lower animals may be supple- 
mented by intelligence, I quote from some of the observations 
and experiments of Huber on bees which are cited by Eimer: x 
u Once the bees had made on a wooden surface the beginning of 
two combs, one to the right, the other to the left, in such a way 
that the latter should support an anterior, the former a posterior 
comb, and the two when finished should be separated by the 
usual distance between two combs in a hive. But the bees 
found that they had not allowed sufficient distance. What did 
they do in order to avoid losing the work already done ? They 
joined the beginnings of the two combs into one. The curvature 
necessarily produced was in the continuation of the comb com- 
pletely levelled, so that the lower part of the comb became as 
regular as one properly commenced." 

Eimer says further that: "The skill of the garden spider in 
building her web no doubt depends on instinct, but only with 
regard to the main process: here also reflection is exercised on 
many points. In the mere choice of the place where the net is 
to be spread the spider needs to take many things into consid- 

1 Organic Evolution, p. 291. 



ISO PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

eration: direction of wind, sunlight, abundance of insects, and, 
above all, the assurance that the web will be safe from disturb- 
ance in the place selected, require a host of intelligent conclu- 
sions — the question of security from disturbance alone requires 
a number. And yet how correctly the spiders usually judge in 
this very respect." 

Wallace is authority for the statement that migrating birds do 
not fly unerringly to desirable regions. He says : * " Thousands 
annually fly out to sea and perish, showing that the instinct to 
migrate is imperfect, and is not a good substitute for reason and 
observation." Romanes remarks that: "Instincts are not rig- 
idly fixed, but are plastic, and their plasticity renders them 
capable of improvement or of alternation, according as intelligent 
observation requires." "Thus we see that the oldest and most 
important instincts in bees and birds admit of being greatly 
modified, both in the individual and in the race, by intelligent 
adaptation to changed conditions of life; and therefore we can 
scarcely doubt that the principle of lapsing intelligence must be 
of much assistance to that of natural selection in the origination 
and development of instincts." 2 Conversely it must not be 
supposed that man acts without instinctive impulses and solely 
from intelligent guidance. The next paragraph shows very 
clearly the part played by instinct in man. 

Instincts not Confined to Animals below Man. — Instincts are 
ascribed by the uneducated only to animals. Because man 
comes into the world a very helpless creature and remains so for 
such a long period, it is thought that human beings possess no 
instincts. These traits are thought to be special provisions for 
the guidance of the animals lower than man. But although man 
is not limited to habitual reactions, either racial or individually 
acquired, he possesses even more instincts than other animals. 
The reason we do not recognize instinctive traits in man is 
because they are exceedingly complex, rendered so through 
modification by each other, by habits, and by education. 

1 Darwinism, p. 442. 

2 " The Darwinian Theory of Instinct," Essays, p. 42. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 151 

James has said that man possesses all the instincts of the lower 
animals and many more. This is not literally true. Even 
though man were a direct descendant of all the lower animals, 
we should have to remember that recapitulation is not complete. 
Many organs and functions have been exercised in the course 
of evolution. Old instincts have died out and new ones have 
been born. It would, however, be correct to say that man 
possesses as many instincts as the lower animals and vastly 
more. Instincts are simply potencies or impulses which cause 
the individual to act in particular directions. Abilities in music 
or mathematics are just as truly instincts as the phenomena of 
nest-building by birds or the spinning of webs by spiders. Wundt 
says that "the human being is permeated through and through 
with instinctive action, determined in part, however, by intelli- 
gence and volition." * 

Human Instincts. — Among the most readily apparent human 
instincts the following are typical: Sucking, biting, clasping 
with fingers or toes, carrying objects to the mouth in childhood, 
crying, smiling, protrusion of the lips, frowning, gesturing, 
holding the head erect, sitting up, standing, creeping, walking, 
climbing, imitation, talking, emulation, rivalry, pugnacity, 
anger, resentment, sympathy, the hunting instinct, migration; 
a great many fears or phobias, as of high places, dark places, 
strange objects; acquisitiveness, constructiveness, play, curios- 
ity, gregariousness, bashfulness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, 
love, parental feelings, home-making, jealousy, pity. The list 
might be made vastly longer. In fact, man is a great complex 
of tendencies to acting, feeling, and thinking in a great variety 
of directions. These impulses are all instincts. Should some 
one argue that such a phenomenon as speech is not instinctive, 
but a result of imitation, I would make the rejoinder: "Then 
why does not my dog learn to speak the same as my child?" 
They both have the opportunity of hearing and imitating. The 
very fact that my child learns to speak while my dog does not is 
evidence that my child possesses a potentiality which my dog 

1 Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology. 



152 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

does not possess. This tendency or impulse is an instinct. 
Why is it possible for the cat carried miles away in a bag to 
find its way back unerringly ? Or why can the homing pigeon 
and the bee fly in "bee lines," while we human beings make 
such sorry mistakes concerning directions? Because the cat, 
the pigeon, and the bee have potentialities which we do not 
possess. 

Any activities or tendencies to action which are universally 
possessed by a race or species, — which do not have to be learned 
by the individuals, or which are learned by individuals with 
great readiness, may be considered as instincts. 

Some Special Human Instincts. — Vital reactions. — After hav- 
ing shown how universal and fundamental are instinctive tenden- 
cies, an attempt will now be made to indicate something of their 
educational significance. A few typical instincts will be dis- 
cussed in detail, but the educational bearings must necessarily 
be on broad general lines. 

Among the earliest human instincts to be exhibited are those 
of sucking and swallowing. These are absolutely necessary for 
self-preservation and are about as deep-seated as the automatic 
cardiac movements, the respiratory and intestinal movements. 
Some children have been observed to suck the thumb within 
three minutes after birth. To be sure, sucking and swallowing 
await the action of a stimulus. Until there is excitation of the 
proper organs there is no manifestation of the instinctive activity. 
But is not the same true of pulmonary action, of heart and vas- 
cular action, and of intestinal action ? The pulmonary muscles 
and the cardiac muscles do not begin to act until stimulated. 
Purely physical forces cause the air to fill the vacuum in the 
nose, mouth, bronchial tubes, and lungs. Thus stimulated, 
the mechanism, functionally mature, is set in motion. The 
circulation awaited similar stimulation (about the fifth month 
of foetal life). Thus the new life once set in motion beats on, 
and on, and a prolonged cessation means death. So the ap- 
paratus for sucking, functionally mature, awaited the proper 
stimulus to make it available for self-preservation. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 153 

Grasping. — Grasping with fingers and toes is another activity 
ready to function at birth. New-born infants grasp objects 
with the hand, and sometimes even with the toes. The ability 
to grasp with the toes almost dies out through disuse, but the 
ability to grasp objects with the hand develops because of its 
great importance as a means of self-preservation. Educationally 
it is also an important means of knowledge-getting. During the 
first weeks and months of the child's life he is enabled to get 
a great many ideas of the various qualities of objects: tastes, 
hardness, roughness, smoothness, shapes, etc. Distances and 
sizes are measured by the experience gained in reaching, which is 
a part of grasping, and in touching. The experiences thus gained 
are fundamental in all later knowledge of the world of things. 
The child should be provided with objects whereby this instinct 
may be exercised. While he is learning to seize more accurately 
and to grasp more firmly and accurately he is learning many 
ideas that are basal in later concepts. The sucking instinct 
and the instinct for putting everything in the mouth, although 
detrimental in many instances, still aid the little one in his 
exploration of the material qualities of things. I have no- 
ticed a child of seven months exercise much care in carry- 
ing a rough pine stick to his mouth. As soon as he begins 
normally to grasp after things he should be supplied with various 
objects to handle. This is especially true when he begins to 
sit alone. 

Locomotion. — The instinct for locomotion prompts the child 
to execute movements which are destined to multiply indefinitely 
his range of explorations. First by creeping, crawling, rolling, 
or sliding he manages to propel himself about his limited world. 
This is, of course, one of those deferred instincts which manifest 
themselves only when functional maturity of the centres involved 
becomes complete. Through a fear that the child will soil his 
clothes by creeping, many mothers very injudiciously discourage 
all efforts at creeping or any other means of locomotion other 
than walking. Besides being a potent means of strengthening 
chest-muscles, lungs, arms, and other parts of the body, creeping 



154 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

is an absolutely necessary means of education. No greater sin 
could be committed against the child than by curtailing his 
infantile efforts at personal locomotion. By locomotion the 
child not only acquires accurate knowledge of hundreds of 
objects and their qualities, but all the senses are receiving 
definite training and development. The two requisites for the 
development of the senses, as noted elsewhere, are proper 
nutriment and stimulation. If either be lacking or in excess, 
the results are detrimental. It would, of course, be absurd to 
try to force upon the child's notice a multitude of sensory im- 
pressions. Over-stimulation, such as may be produced by too 
much playing with children, keeping them up at unseasonable 
hours, arousing from sleep to exhibit to admiring friends, etc., 
is positively harmful. It may produce precocity, but the final 
outcome may be unstrung nerves or arrested development. 
Too often the baby is played with, in reality to amuse the elders, 
under the pretext or the mistaken idea that the baby needs 
amusement. The rule should be to furnish the child sufficient 
materials to satisfy his capricious interests, but to let the child 
be the pacemaker. When it is hard work to amuse the baby 
something besides amusement is needed. The little nerves are 
probably already overwrought, and rest and quiet, possibly 
sleep, are needed. 

As soon as the child begins to walk, his ideas begin to expand 
wonderfully. Whereas his sense perceptions were confined 
mainly to the house through the creeping stage, he now, if prop- 
erly treated, begins to explore the region round about, sometimes 
to the annoyance of the neighbors and the embarrassment of his 
parents. But the only way to understand the world is to travel. 
The one, child or adult, who sticks by the home fireside always 
remains provincial and circumscribed in ideas. Children's 
vocabularies are good indexes of the extent of their explorations. 
The children who have not seen rivers, hills, trees, birds, cows, 
and other animals; trains, engines, and mills, do not have these 
words in their vocabularies. A city child of even three years old 
increases its vocabulary and its stock of ideas amazingly by 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 155 

being taken into the country. The country child undergoes 
the same change by going into city environment. Thus the 
instinct for locomotion is a most important means to advanta- 
geous educational ends. 

Expression. — Children often invent gesture language. Deaf- 
mutes also do so, even when isolated from speaking people. 
Ribot quotes Gerando as saying that : " Children of about seven 
years old who have not yet been educated, make use of an 
astonishing number of gestures ... in communicating with 
each other." As a further illustration of this spontaneous, 
natural language, he says that: " Gerando and others after 
him remarked that deaf-mutes in their native state communicate 
easily with one another. He enumerates a long series of ideas 
which they express in their mimicry and gestures, and many of 
these expressions are identical in all countries." l 

This instinct for expression should receive proper attention. 
As soon as the child manifests a desire to communicate his ideas 
in speech, his crude, spontaneous, and more deliberative attempts 
should be encouraged. Instead of mimicking the child in his 
baby expressions and helping to fix the wrong form in his mind, 
one should repeat for him the correct form distinctly and en- 
courage the child (not nag him) to imitate. The vocal organs 
are now ripe for utterance and should be exercised. If the child 
does not develop the speech organs during this nascent period 
he will ever be slow, halting, or deficient in the use of words. 
Certain it is that new words are accumulated with amazing 
rapidity during this budding period. The two-year-old child 
has amassed, within a year, from three hundred to twelve hun- 
dred words, representing ideas, and may have as many more 
parrot-words, i. e., sounds imitated without an understanding 
of the meanings. These latter have been gathered from rhymes, 
jingles, and from conversation not understood and from chance 
association of sounds with objects or actions. Now, even these 
parrot-words are important, for they gradually acquire fulness of 
meaning. Words are, as Dr. Harris has said, like bags; once 

1 Evolution 0} General Ideas, p. 40. 



156 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

acquired they hold all the perceptions and reflections that relate 
to the idea symbolized by the word. 

Not only should the child be assisted in enunciation, but his 
environment should be such as to lead to the production of 
ideas. Although I do not coincide with the renowned Max 
Miiller that there can be no thinking without words, yet it is 
doubtless true that the best thinking utilizes words as instru- 
ments. The child that is properly environed, who gratifies his 
appetite for seeing, hearing, and touching things, who is led to 
think about these things (for thinking does not hurt children), 
and who is not overstimulated, will as surely acquire words as 
mature people acquire tools to accomplish their mechanical 
work. 

The instinct of curiosity, the constructive instinct, and the 
inborn tendency to play, all co-operate in the acquisition of 
language. The child must see and examine things for himself; 
he should not stumble upon them all by chance; designedly he 
should be led to where things are; he must be helped to see them 
aright; he must have facts told about them; he must be ques- 
tioned about them; and above all, he must have questions 
answered that he will surely ask. In this way he will pick up 
much language; he will have given to him many new words; 
he will ask terms from you, and he will even coin them for 
himself. 

Curiosity. — The child, through his instinctive curiosity, is a 
born investigator. Normally he pulls things to pieces to see 
how they are made and how they go. His unwise elders often 
condemn what they believe to be innate destructiveness, but he 
is simply trying to satisfy his craving for knowledge. To keep 
alive this instinct and further its normal development is high 
teaching art. Too often before the end of school life the instinct 
has completely atrophied. To get the college student to desire 
to know is the most difficult task before the college instructor. 
Not infrequently before the college is reached all knowledge is 
taken in prescribed doses and largely because ill consequences 
are feared if directions are not followed. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 157 

Curiosity is a fundamental instinct, observable far down in the 
scale of animal life. It is apt to be coupled with fear in the 
presence of strange objects. Who has not seen horses, cattle, 
sheep, and swine hovering around a newly discovered and 
strange object, oftentimes walking round and round, hovering 
in its vicinity, but ever with nerves tense ready to make off with 
the greatest speed on the discovery of apparently harmful or 
undesirable signs ? Any one who has tried to catch a horse in a 
pasture by luring him with a pretence of food has received a 
lasting remembrance of this blending of curiosity and fear. 
Fowls and birds exhibit the same characteristics. Small children, 
and even adults, often manifest similar states. I have seen my 
child of one year cry with fear on seeing an umbrella, but no 
amount of persuasion could bring her away from its vicinity, so 
fascinating it seemed. Many adults often flirt with the danger- 
ous and uncanny in the same way. Who has not gone through 
a dark wood, a dark room, all quaking with fear but curious to 
ferret out some mystery ? Every one would fain take a turn at 
hunting for spooks in a haunted house. Sully tells us that: 
"A very tiny child, on first making acquaintance with some 
form of physical pain, as a bump on the head, will deliberately 
repeat the experience by knocking his head against something 
as if experimenting and watching the effect." * This is clearly 
a case of curiosity overpowering fear. 

Spencer says: " Whoever has watched, with any discernment, 
the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at surrounding objects, knows 
very well that education does begin thus early, whether we intend 
it or not; and that these fingerings and suckings of everything it 
can lay hold of, these open-mouthed listenings to every sound, 
are the first steps in the series which ends in the discovery of 
unseen planets, the invention of calculating engines, the pro- 
duction of great paintings, or the composition of symphonies 
and operas. This activity of the faculties from the very first 
being spontaneous and inevitable, the question is whether we 
shall supply in due variety the materials on which they may 

1 Studies of Childhood, p. 225. 



158 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

exercise themselves; and to the question so put, none but an 
affirmative answer can be given." * Lloyd Morgan gives ex- 
pression to a coincident opinion where he says: "Herein, then, 
lies the utility of the restlessness, the exuberant activity, the 
varied playfulness, the prying curiosity, the inquisitiveness, the 
meddlesome mischievousness, the vigorous and healthy experi- 
mentalism of the young." 2 

Activity and Constructiveness. — A child of six months acci- 
dentally knocks two tin cans together and discovers that he has 
done something. He immediately strives to continue this 
experiment, and his beaming countenance gives ample evidence 
of the satisfaction gained. At eight months my child acciden- 
tally dropped a teaspoon upon the floor. When the teaspoon was 
given to the child again, he at once began to exert himself to 
repeat the dropping process. After that, whenever the spoon 
was given to him the dropping recurred. Evidently the child's 
desire to repeat the action was prompted not so much by the 
pleasurable noise as the satisfaction of doing something. From 
the time children can walk I have found them anxious to do 
things that grown-up people do. They are anxious to dust, 
sweep, wash, iron, bake, make beds, carry things, read, write, 
and go on errands. They are called lazy a little later on, but I 
believe that a normal healthy child has not a lazy fibre in its 
make-up. Its muscles, nerves, and senses are hungry for exer- 
cise, and every effort is made by the child to satisfy these 
cravings. The child may be lazy in the sense that your particu- 
lar kind of occupation may be repugnant to him, but if you watch 
the little feet trot all day you can hardly have the heart to call 
him lazy. 

Constructiveness is a fundamental instinct of so much im- 
portance as to merit special consideration. All children early 
exhibit tendencies toward making things. I have noticed a 
child of seven months trying to place one block upon another in 
imitation of other children. Miss Shinn tells us that her niece 
as early as seven months would not listen contentedly to older 

1 Education, p. 128. i Habit and Instinct, p. 162. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 159 

persons playing the piano, but that she was satisfied only when 
trying it herself. 1 

In these inborn tendencies to activity and constructiveness are 
the teacher's and parent's golden opportunities. The parent 
should encourage the little ones to help. In this way the work 
habit will be instilled, and by the time the child is five years of 
age it may save its mother many steps every day. It can pick 
up and put away its own playthings, and run on errands (I have 
known four-year-olds to go half a mile and purchase correctly 
things from a store and to go daily for little grocery orders in the 
near neighborhood). Most children are born carpenters; that 
is, the love of carpenter's tools is well-nigh universally mani- 
fested among healthy children. They want to hammer, and 
saw, and make. A child can have no more useful educative 
appliances than a hammer, some nails, and boards into which he 
may have full liberty to drive the nails. I have noticed children 
of two years amuse themselves in this way for hours at a time. 
They may not develop into carpenters when grown up, but they 
have gained an education through the process. It is a pity that 
children cannot have a set of tools and that instead of having 
all their toys, sleds, carts, etc., made for them they are not 
allowed and encouraged to construct them for themselves. 

James has put the matter very aptly in the following para- 
graph: "Constructiveness is the instinct most active; and by 
the incessant hammering and sawing, and dressing and undress- 
ing dolls, putting of things together and taking them apart, the 
child not only trains the muscles to co-ordinate action, but 
accumulates a store of physical conceptions which are the basis 
of his knowledge of the material world through life. Object 
teaching and manual training wisely extend the sphere of this 
order of acquisitions. Clay, wood, metals, and the various 
kinds of tools are made to contribute to the store. A youth 
brought up with a sufficiently broad basis of this kind is always 

1 Notes on the Development of a Child, p. 116. (The entire volume is rich in 
suggestions concerning the early activity and instinctive constructiveness of 
children.) 



160 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

at home in the world. He stands within the pale. He is ac- 
quainted with Nature, and Nature in a certain sense is acquainted 
with him. Whereas the youth brought up alone at home, with 
no acquaintance with anything but the printed page, is always 
afflicted with a certain remoteness from the material facts of 
life, and a correlative insecurity of consciousness which makes of 
him a kind of alien on the earth in which he ought to feel him- 
self perfectly at home. . . . Moreover, . . . how important for 
life, — for the moral tone of life, quite apart from definite practical 
pursuits, — is this sense of readiness for emergencies which a man 
gains through early familiarity and acquaintance with the world 
of material things. To have grown up on a farm, to have 
haunted a carpenter's and blacksmith's shop, to have handled 
horses and cows and boats and guns, and to have ideas and 
abilities connected with such objects are an inestimable part of 
youthful acquisition. After adolescence it is rare to be able to 
get into familiar touch with any of these primitive things. The 
instinctive propensions have faded, and the habits are hard to 
acquire. 

"Accordingly, one of the best fruits of the 'child-study' move- 
ment has been to reinstate all these activities to their proper 
place in a sound system of education. Feed the growing human 
being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year 
to year he shows a natural craving, and he will develop 'in adult 
life a sounder sort of mental tissue, even though he may seem 
to be 'wasting' a great deal of his growing time, in the eyes of 
those for whom the only channels of learning are books and 
verbally communicated information." x 

Play. — The educative value of the play instinct has been 
recognized by kindergartners since the time of Froebel. It has 
recently received much study by others, and undoubtedly is a 
means of intellectual and moral discipline. I believe that both 
free play and regulated play whose ends are certain discipline, 
are valuable. In the first five or even six years the play should 
be almost entirely free play, without adult restrictions imposed 

1 James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology and Life's Ideals, p. 146. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 161 

upon it. In the first place, the tonic effects of play upon the 
nervous system are of great moment. When mental exercise has 
been engaged in which absorbs one part of the brain only, free 
play causes what Warner designates as "augmenting, spreading 
movements " of nervous energy. The spontaneous play calls into 
action fresh brain areas and the successive discharges from one 
centre to other centres serve to reinforce the nerve currents as 
they proceed to the muscle which produces visible action. A 
good laugh, which usually accompanies free play, being a 
series of acts commencing with small muscles and ending with 
the large ones, may completely change the previous mode of 
brain action. 1 To remove temporary fatigue there is abso- 
lutely no substitute for the good old-fashioned recess, with its 
laugh and shout and capering wildly about. 

Play, then, during the early stage of childhood before the 
child has gained control over the accessory muscles should be 
largely spontaneous and unrestricted. I say largely, because 
even then something may be done to regulate and direct play 
which does not involve fine co-ordinations. The kindergarten 
games which include movements involving the larger muscles of 
the trunk, those controlling the head, arms, legs, etc., may be 
engaged in to great advantage. These should have in view the 
exercise of the social instincts. Many little social duties and 
amenities may be thoroughly inculcated in children through 
play which is organized and directed by the teacher. My 
children had a birthday party the other day. The whole direc- 
tion of the affair was given by the mother. They were helped 
to arrange the little table, were assigned places, given a few 
directions, and through imitation of others they carried out the 
rest of the program. Now the little games which the kinder- 
gartner directs (though she may seem to be asking their advice) 
are of immense value in helping children through imitation and 
obedience to learn the fundamental laws of society. These plays 
should certainly be well adapted to the capacity of the children, 
never predominantly inhibitive or restraining, rather the re- 

1 See Warner, Mental Faculty, p. 116, 



i62 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

verse. But enough of control should be sought to lead the child 
to form habits of self-control. It must be done by easy gradients. 
It is like gradually training the colt by accustoming him early 
to the halter, to being led, and to being bridled, so that when his 
colt-hood is ready for the harness he needs no " breaking." 
The entirely unrestrained child is like the wild horse; subse- 
quently he may be broken but is never safe. A violent outbreak 
may be expected at the least unusual occurrence. It has been 
shown by several writers that many boys' organizations (base- 
ball teams, etc.) do not hang together well but go to pieces on 
slight provocations. Bryan concludes from this that therefore 
play up to about twelve years "should be unhampered, spon- 
taneous and careless of ends." While I recognize the fact that 
children do not hold together in "team work" of themselves, I 
should be inclined to attribute it to the very fact that childhood 
cannot produce leadership. In Professor Bryan's own words in 
the same article: "Unquestioned obedience to rational, intel- 
ligent authority should be the principle in the management of 
young children, and freedom from this principle will increase 
with the development of the child." 1 

From a considerable observation of kindergarten games and 
household games of children, I am led to believe that their enjoy- 
ment is in no wise curtailed by wise direction, and certainly the 
educative features derived are much superior to the play that is 
entirely "careless of ends." The child in his spontaneous play 
is not always "careless of the end." My little girl of five goes 
coasting, and of her own free will and with no instruction save 
imitation and experience has learned to steer the sled almost as 
skilfully as an adult. Children of eight or ten often learn to 
skate beautifully, learn to ride bicycles in a manner that puts to 
blush the adult, and it is all play to them. Now provided they 
enter into organized games with the same zest, and I believe 
they may, why is it not as much play when directed ? It should 
be no more hurtful to the child to cheerfully obey simple direc- 
tions in a kindergarten game than to learn "pat-a-cake," to 

1 Ped. Sent., vol. VII, p. 380. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 163 

learn to button his own clothes (which my children have begged 
to do), to learn to hold a knife and fork properly, to main- 
tain reasonable silence in presence of company and at the 
table, etc. 

The social instinct is one that early exhibits itself. The babe 
of a few weeks old shows signs of lonesomeness when left alone, 
especially if it has been much tended. By the time the child is 
five or six months old absence of accustomed members of the 
family, especially children, causes no little irritability. Perhaps 
a caution may be thrown out against over-stimulation of the 
immature nerves during the early days of childhood. If al- 
lowed too much companionship, although he enjoys it, the child 
may become irritable and his normal growth be seriously hin- 
dered. By the sixth month the child may safely watch other 
children at play for some hours daily. A little later on he will 
take a hand in playing with objects on his own account. The 
child should be the one to manifest a desire to play with things. 
This is first exhibited by grasping as indicated above. Too 
often, however, things are forced upon him by nurses who seek 
to keep him quiet by continually increasing the stimuli. The 
more the child frets the harder they toss, and pat, and pinch, 
and tickle, and talk, and sing. What the babe needs under 
such symptoms is something that will act as a sedative, i. e., to 
be left alone and to have quiet around him. 

The social instinct furnishes a starting-point for the complete 
training of the individual for his place in society. The laws of 
the socius can be learned only by being in social organizations. 
A child isolated from the world grows up a social monster, 
because of the abnormal development of his selfish nature. 
Rousseau taught that man is by nature a pure being becoming 
corrupt by contact with artificial society. Therefore he isolates 
Emile from his fellows from birth to manhood. But such an 
individual could not live in society because he has found no 
place in it. Law and order, the basis of our social fabric, are 
meaningless to him. Hence the child must learn the fun- 
damentals of social organizations by subjecting himself to the 



1 

1 
I 

164 PRINCIPLES OF EBjtlCATION 

! ^ 

restrictions imposed by society for Jhe benefit of the whole 
and the individuals composing the wfiole. 

The family is the first to impose restrictions and extend privi- 
leges. Instinctively the child learns |about the family organiza- 
tion and also instinctively imitates their reactions toward one 
another. By this undesigned process the child unconsciously 
forms numberless habits, which wil| ( ^>e priceless to him through 
all his life. He learns, or should learn, how to treat his parents, 
brothers and sisters, strangers, howjtd behave at the table, not to 
disturb family or neighborhood peace, etc. But even this would 
leave him undisciplined in multiple essentials of the relation- 
ships imposed by society at large. There is the school toward 
which the child instinctively yearns to go. I believe all children 
want to go to school not because it is school, but because many 
children are there. Now, too early formal school work is 
injurious, but there is the kindergarten and if properly conducted 
it is a blessing to all children. There the children can assemble 
and under pure, wholesome influences, through exercises ap- 
pealing to the instincts of sociability, expression, and con- 
structiveness, learn through play some of the most valuable 
lessons of their lives. ChiLdren of the most disagreeably selfish 
dispositions may there with little or no coercion develop the 
control and proper emotional attitude for most amiable actions. 
Through imitation of their fellows, they learn to do marly things 
which could not be beaten into them, and they drop many habits 
which could never have been beaten out of them. 

Reign of Law in Psycho-Genesis. — The great contribution of 
evolution has been in rendering a new interpretation of the 
origin of present modes of activity. Instead of regarding any 
action as causeless or as supernatural, it finds an explanation of 
the present in the records of the past. Dr. Stanley Hall in 
particular has given an entirely new meaning to education. 
His great admonition is to study the actual child of to-day if we 
wish to develop an ideal man of to-morrow; and if we would 
know the real child of to-day, we must not only view him as 
he is, but we must know him historically. The paleo-psychic 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 165 

records of race growth must be searched diligently to know how 
the child of to-day came to be what he is. Then only are we 
ready to plan for the morrow. Otherwise our blunderings may 
cause only arrests, retardations, and malformations. 

He says: ! "Man is not a permanent type but an organism 
in a very active stage of evolution toward a more permanent 
form. Our consciousness is but a single stage and one type of 
mind; a late, partial, and perhaps essentially abnormal and 
remedial outcrop of the great underlying life of man-soul. 
The animal, savage, and chfild soul can never be studied by 
introspection." Dr. Hall has emphasized more strikingly than 
any one else how each individual comes into the world freighted 
with all the influences of the past. Though each rational being 
undergoes great modification, yet the initiation of most phenom- 
ena of the present has its origin in the remote past and can 
only be understood by comprehending that past. Evolutionary 
history is the key to the understanding of the present and no 
great progress in education can ever be effected without the 
prophecy made possible by revelation of what and how the pres- 
ent came to be. He further writes: "We must go to school 
to the folk-soul, learn of criminals and defectives, animals, and 
in some sense go back to Aristotle in rebasing psychology on 
biology, and realize that we know the soul best when we can write 
its history in the world, and that there are no finalities save 
formulas of development. The soul is thus still in the making, 
and we may hope for an indefinite further development. . . . 
There are powers in the soul that slumber like the sleepers in 
myth, partially aroused, it may be, in great personal or social 
crises, but some time to be awakened to dominance. In a word, 
the view here represents a nascent tendency and is in striking 
contrast to all those systems that presume to have attained even 
an approximate finality." In his classical study of fears, 2 
Dr. Hall also wrote: "We must assume the capacity to fear 
or to anticipate pain, and to associate it with certain objects 

1 Adolescence, I, vii. 

2 Am. Jour, of Psych., vol. VIII, p. 245. 



166 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and experiences, as an inherited Anlage, often of a far higher 
antiquity than we are wont to suppose." 

In this way he has sought an explanation of the multitude of 
activities which have hitherto been merely catalogued and 
regarded as static or supernaturally given. In his psychology 
and pedagogy everything has a natural history. Royce has 
contributed much in the same direction in his Outlines of 
Psychology, in which he explains initiative, docility, will, and 
conduct as the resultant of complex impulses which are the out- 
growths of inherited and individual experiences that become 
organized into latent tendencies. 

The Present a Reverberation of the Past. — The beginnings of 
all great types of action have their roots far back in the past, 
that is, they are instinctive. Even conception, judgment, and 
reason — which we are apt to regard as the antipodes of 
instinct — are themselves in part instinctive. The Imore effi 
cient they are, the greater the instinctive capital with which 
they start. Royce has said of walking, creeping, etc., that 
their mastery was "very slowly reached as the result of a 
training whose details were nowhere predetermined by hered- 
ity, while on the other hand, every step of the process was 
indeed predetermined by hereditary constitution to tend, in the 
normal child, toward a result that would give it, under the cir- 
cumstances of its individual life, the powers of locomotion suited 
to a human being." 1 

In a similar manner Marshall accounts for religion, duty, and 
conscience upon a genetic basis. He says: " We here conceive 
of conscience as the protest of a persistent instinct against a less 
persistent, but momentarily more powerful one, and we are 
led to the belief that conscience has been evolved by natural 
evolutionary forces. We are thus led, therefore, to look upon 
conscience as being in general the surest guide we have to mark 
the way in which we should direct our lives if we would act in 
accord with what we call the law of development." 2 

1 Outlines o) Psychology, p. 304. 

2 Instinct and Reason, p. 410. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 167 

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: * "But mind this: the more 
we observe and study, the wider the range of the automatic and 
instinctive principles in body, mind, and morals, and the nar- 
rower the limits of the self-determining conscious movement." 
Dr. Hall says: "There is one thing in nature, and one alone, 
fit to inspire all true men and women with more awe and rever- 
ence than Kant's starry heavens, and that is the soul and the 
body of the healthy young child. Heredity has freighted it with 
all the accumulated results of parental well and ill-doing, and 
filled it with reverberations from a past more vast than science 
can explore; and on its right development depends the entire 
future of civilization two or three decades hence. Simple as 
childhood seems, there is nothing harder to know; and re- 
sponsive as it is to every influence about it, nothing is harder 
to guide. To develop childhood to virtue, power, and due 
freedom is the supreme end of education, to which everything 
else must be subordinated as means. Just as to command 
inanimate nature we must constantly study, love, and obey 
her, so to control child-nature we must first and perhaps still 
more piously study, love, obey it. The best of us teachers 
have far more to learn from children than we can ever hope 
to teach them; and what we succeed in teaching, at least 
beyond the merest rudiments, will always be proportionate to 
the knowledge we have the wit to get from and about them." 2 

Nascent Periods. — The term nascent period is employed in 
chemistry to designate that state of a compound in which it is 
just beginning to form. It has already come into use in biolog- 
ical interpretations of education to indicate the time of the 
budding of instincts. The instinct begins to manifest itself 
when the organism is mature or ripe in development. Structure 
and function develop together. Consequently whenever a new 
instinctive tendency appears it is indicative of the approaching 
maturity of the correlative structure. Baldwin 3 has called 

1 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. ioo. 

2 North American Review, Feb., 1885, p. 146. 

3 Mental Development, chap. 4. 



168 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

attention to the fact that the instinct for vocal speech begins to 
manifest itself synchronously with the preferred use of the right 
hand. Up to the age of eight or nine months the child is ambi- 
dextrous. During the same period no attempt has been made 
to talk. Since they arise at the same time and since the centres 
controlling the two functions are so closely situated, Baldwin 
regards the two processes as functionally related and as having 
the same nascent period. My own experiments with children 
confirm Baldwin's conclusions. 

A study of the prominent human instincts shows that there 
are nascent periods in the development of each of them. Fear 
is not displayed at birth, but develops after a few months. 
Walking is deferred from nine to twenty-four months ; x curiosity 
is scarcely worthy the name for some years ; the collecting instinct 
is not noticed in most children for some years; the sex instinct, 
the parental instinct, the religious instinct, all have their special 
budding periods. During these periods the golden opportunity 
for their cultivation is presented. 

Nascent Periods in Motor Development. — Mosso wrote: "In 
man the brain develops later than in all other animals, because 
his muscles also develop later. The striped muscles are mere 
incomplete at birth in man than in any other animal. For this 
fact that the human brain develops so slowly, I am able to dis- 
cover no other reason than this, that at birth the organs which 
effect movement over which the brain exercises its authority, 
are not yet complete." 

He says further: "If we wish to hasten the maturity of the 
brain, we must decide whether the formation of the myelin can 
better be hastened by stimulations of the senses and intellectual 
work, or better by muscular exercises. The latter way seems to 
me the more natural. We must, therefore, to begin with, consoli- 

1 One can readily detect the nascent period for walking by supporting the 
child in such a way as to allow the feet to dangle and not touch the floor. If 
ready to walk soon, the child's legs will alternate in their motions, if not they will 
swing synchronously. Many think it is the practice given the child which 
enables it to learn locomotion. James says some blisters on the feet for a few 
weeks would demonstrate that the child would walk anyway. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 169 

date the motor nerve paths which develop first, and after that 
seek to develop the portion of the brain concerned with intel- 
lectual work. Modern views show a tendency to confirm what 
the great philosophers of Greece already recognized, viz., that 
children ought to begin to read and write only with the tenth 
year. The conviction is again slowly maturing that our chil- 
dren begin to learn too early, that it is injurious for the develop- 
ment of the brain to be fettered to the school-desk when only 
five or six years old. The conviction is slowly making its way 
that no more time should be devoted to intellectual work than 
to muscular exercise. The modern education of youth, how- 
ever, resembles more an artificial hot-house culture than a 
natural training of the human plant." * 

Similarly we may regard the progress of development of all 
inherent capacities and powers. Even those more indefinite 
powers, like power of mechanical memory, ability to learn ab- 
stract arithmetic and grammar, have their periods of budding 
vigor when their cultivation can be best effected. The chapters 
on motor ability and on the development from fundamental to 
accessory, give ample evidence that the child of five has very 
little control of the accessory muscles. Manual dexterity re- 
quiring fine co-ordinations should not be attempted in childhood. 
Fine writing and the use of small tools should be deferred until 
later. The nascent period for the acquisition of manual skill 
is early youth. The maximum dexterity is not attained then, 
but the cultivation must then begin if the fullest fruitage is to 
ensue. Many superintendents are convinced that manual train- 
ing in its complete forms should be begun not later than the 
grammar grades. Authorities in colleges of engineering argue 
for manual training in the secondary schools because those who 
defer it until the college is reached fail to acquire the same 
degree of skill. To gain great skill in playing the piano and 
other musical instruments, it is well understood that it is abso- 
lutely necessary to begin in early life. 

1 Clark University Decennial Celebration Volume, p. 383. 



170 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Nascent Period for Language. — There is a special period in the 
life of the child when his capacity and interest in acquiring 
vocalized speech are at their best. The child gives abundant 
evidence of this period by his constant chatterings and his 
amazing acquisitions. In a few months he acquires a vocab- 
ulary which would take an adult as many years to acquire. 
This period is at its best from about one and a half years to ten 
or twelve. During this period the child should be in an environ- 
ment where, through imitation, he can absorb without difficulty 
all the knowledge of the mother tongue that he will ever need 
for practical purposes. An ordinary child of a dozen years of 
age who has been reared in a refined home where correct language 
is spoken and who has had ample opportunity to talk will be 
able without schooling to use his mother tongue with facility, 
force, and precision. 

During the same nascent language period there is a golden 
opportunity for acquiring the ability to speak foreign languages. 
There is abundant evidence that ordinary children can, in addi- 
tion to their native tongue, master two or three foreign languages 
as spoken languages by the time they are ten years of age. This 
means that they can understand readily what they hear and can 
use effectively the language in expressing their ideas orally. 
We have wholesale illustrations of the fact that childhood is the 
nascent period for acquiring a spoken language. Foreigners 
who come to this country in childhood acquire such a mastery 
of the language in a few months that they cannot be distinguished 
from the native-born. The parents of the same children, how- 
ever, seldom acquire the language so as to use it with any great 
degree of precision or skill. It is not because they do not try, 
but because the vocal organs and the centres controlling them 
have passed beyond the nascent period of economical functioning 
in new ways. Children who have acquired these accomplish- 
ments know as much of arithmetic, geography, and of other usual 
school subjects as do the children who have not acquired the 
additional languages. The children suffer no impairment of 
health because of the additional acquisitions. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 171 

And in spite of such ample evidence we persist in America 
in organizing our curricula in such a way as to give practically 
no opportunity to learn foreign languages until too late. To the 
objection that there is no time, it should be said that there is 
abundant time if we only would arrange the curriculum so as 
to adapt it to the stages of development of the unfolding child. 
We are uneconomical in forcing things at unseasonable times. 
The Germans and the French can teach us how to arrange our 
curriculum so as not to waste so much of the child's time. 

"The introduction of athletics affords a striking illustration 
of the decline of the learning power with the progressing years. 
When golf first came in it was considered an excellent game for 
the middle-aged; and you have all watched the middle-aged 
man play. He was so awkward, he could not do it. Day after 
day the man of forty, fifty, or even older, would go to the golf 
field, hoping each time to acquire a sure stroke, but never really 
acquiring it. The young man learned better, but the good golf 
players are those who begin as children, twelve and fourteen 
years of age, and in a few months become as expert and sure as 
their fathers wished to become, but could not. In bicycling it 
was the same. Eight lessons were considered the number neces- 
sary to teach the intelligent adult to ride a wheel. Three for a 
child of eight. And an indefinite number of lessons, ending in 
failure, for a person of seventy. ... As in every study of 
biological facts, there is in the study of senescent mental stability 
the principle of variation to be kept in mind. Men are not alike. 
The great majority of men lose the power of learning, doubtless 
some more and some less, we will say, at twenty-five years. 
Few men after twenty-five are able to learn much. They who 
cannot, become day-laborers, mechanics, clerks of a mechanical 
order. Others probably can go on somewhat longer, and 
obtain higher positions; and there are men who, with extreme 
variations in endowment, preserve the power of active and origi- 
nal thought far on into life. These of course are the exceptional 
men, the great men." * 

1 Minot, Age, Growth, and Death, pp. 243, 246. 



172 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Instincts Antecedent to Great Interests. — It is no less true that 
there are nascent periods for acquiring a knowledge of abstract 
grammar, abstract arithmetic, philosophy, science, and other 
subjects. Every great interest presupposes a corresponding 
innate ability. No one ever developed a great headway of 
interest in anything for which he did not possess some real 
capacity. The boy who can without training sprint a hundred 
yards in eleven seconds is interested in reducing his time to ten 
seconds; but the clumsy fellow who requires fifteen or more 
seconds develops no special interest in sprinting — that is, in 
sprinting himself. He may develop the gambler's interest in 
seeing others sprint. Many think they are interested in foot- 
ball and other sports, but most of them are merely interested 
in being amused, not in participating. Only those with innate 
abilities are so interested. Similarly with music, art, mathe- 
matics, or language. The interest which leads people to be 
patient workers and producers in any of these lines is coupled 
with inherent capacity in the given direction. 

On the extreme importance of recognizing nascent periods in 
education, Dr. Balliet remarks: "There is a nascent period for 
each physical and mental power, a period of rapid growth when 
new aptitudes and interests are developing. It is our dense 
ignorance of most of these nascent periods that makes it impos- 
sible for us as yet to prepare a proper course of study. Hence 
our courses of study are little more than conscientious guesses. 
When we shall know more about these nascent periods, we shall 
be able to arrange a course in which the various phases of every 
study will be presented at the proper period when they will 
appeal most strongly to the child. Such a course of study must 
take into account three types of children . . . the observer, 
the thinker, and the doer. The last type has but recently been 
recognized in education." 

Many Instincts Transitory. — It has only recently become 
understood that instincts are not functional in a fixed manner 
all through life. Most people, for example, think that wild- 
ness, methods of food-getting, etc., are given once for all 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 173 

and are in no way affected by individual experience, i. e., 
education. But two important laws should be remembered in 
this connection: (1) Many instincts develop at a certain age 
and then disappear; (2) Many instincts, if unexercised or un- 
aided by environment, fail entirely to develop, or remain stunted 
and dwarfed. 

Every one knows that playfulness is a characteristic of the 
young rather than of the adult. That the adult does not play 
is not a matter of environment or circumstances, but a result of 
the fading of the instinctive impulse to play. Tadpoles breathe 
by means of gills instead of lungs; the frog naturally adopts a 
new mode of existence in response to new instincts and in con- 
sequence of the passing of old ones. The young calf instinc- 
tively follows, but in time the tendency fades. The young child 
at first instinctively gets food by sucking, but later the impulse 
fades and is replaced by a no less instinctive tendency to bite and 
chew. Allusion was earlier made to the instinctive function of 
swimming movements, and the transient power of infants to 
hang by their hands. In fact, numberless rudimentary instincts, 
like vestigial organs, come into function, survive a brief time, and 
then either partially or completely atrophy. In a sense all the 
organs and functions of infancy are rudimentary. They sub- 
serve a purpose for a given stage and then give way to a higher 
form. 

Atrophy of Unexercised Instincts. — Spalding, the renowned 
observer of animal habits, tells of a friend of his who "reared a 
gosling in the kitchen, away from all water. When this bird 
was some months old, and was taken to a pond, it not only 
refused to go into the water, but when thrown in scrambled out 
again, as a hen would have done. Here was an instinct entirely 
suppressed." * All dogs have an instinct to bury bones, old 
shoes, gloves, and other articles. It was doubtless necessary for 
their ancestors to bury food for self-preservation. James re- 
marks 2 that dogs brought up for the first few weeks of life on a 

1 Lewes, Problems 0} Life and Mind, vol. I, p. 22, note. 
* Principles 0} Psychology, vol. II, p. 399. 



174 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

hard floor where there is no possibility of really burying anything, 
will nevertheless obey the promptings of instinct and will make 
an attempt to bury sundry articles. The futile attempts are, 
however, abandoned after a time and are not repeated all through 
life. The lack of exercise of the instinct was the cause of its 
atrophy. Spalding and James both record that calves and 
chicks, which always manifest the instinct to follow the mother, 
lose this impulse in a few days if put under different environment 
which develops other habits. 

Arrested Development. — I have often had occasion to teach 
algebra to mature persons who had never studied the subject 
previously. I have also taught the subject to boys and girls 
of a dozen years and have found that the latter grasp the subject 
much more easily and better than the former. The minds of the 
adults had become so habituated to . thinking the elementary 
processes that a transition to higher processes was rendered 
difficult. While we should fix, in the form of habits, all activi- 
ties that must be continually repeated in the same way, yet 
we should guard against too definite crystallization of thought 
processes. Every habit tends to enslave its possessor. Pupils 
and parents are continually making a mistake in requesting that 
the children be allowed to "go over subjects again so as to get 
them thoroughly." If it is found inadvisable because of im- 
maturity to promote children who have made a reasonable 
passing grade, it would be far better to have them take new 
matter of an elementary nature rather than to review all the 
old material in exactly the same fashion. A pupil should never 
be kept back in all his studies because of failure in a part of 
them. 

Arrest occurs (a) through the premature or excessive exercise 
of a function or (b) through lack of exercise during the nascent 
stage. Not only do physical and intellectual arrests occur, but 
also emotional, volitional, and moral arrest may as easily ensue 
through the same causes. Darwin tells us with great sadness in 
his later years of his utter inability to appreciate music and 
aesthetic effects in general. He attributed the lack to atrophy, 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 175 

due to disuse. His extreme devotion to an intellectual ideal had 
left no room for aesthetic culture. It is a pity that the beautiful 
in nature and art has not been considered of as great importance 
as the crassly utilitarian. A survey of our almost parkless cities, 
undecorated or fussy architecture, the lack of beautiful paintings, 
the ugly house interiors, the bleak farms without trees, flowers, 
or artificial adornment, all attest that we are pursuing methods 
which tend to stifle all aesthetic impulse. The lack of adorn- 
ment and beautification in life, however, is certainly not because 
of total degeneracy in aesthetic life. The fact that even the 
working people will select the best music and the best art when 
free to them is evidence enough of aesthetic instincts which strug- 
gle for assertion. 

The will may suffer arrest in a great variety of directions. 
The child who is always pampered and never required to exer- 
cise deliberation or put forth effort, grows up with undisciplined 
powers. When the power of control would make him a con- 
queror he finds himself the slave of appetite and passion, and the 
victim of chance environment. Every drunkard despises him- 
self in his sane moments and yearns for the nobility of self- 
control, but the flabby will cannot withstand the tempter's 
voice. Habits of virtue and righteousness have never been 
established and all the wishes and yearnings he can muster are 
overpowered by the habits of vacillation or of absolute unright- 
eousness. 

In the case of undesirable instincts it is well to know when 
and how to arrest development. Royce has very aptly said that 
"childhood is a great region of life for the sprouting and first 
springing of the young weeds of future mental disorder. The 
full-grown maladies of the asylums need older brains to live in; 
but child psychology is often full of elements from which future 
troubles may come. It therefore behooves the teacher of young 
children to be, if possible, psychologist enough to know, and by 
sight too, those symptoms of instability of brain which are so 
common in early years." * 

1 "Mental Defect and Disorder," Ed. Rev., 15:322. 



176 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Hall wrote that systematic gymnastic exercises applied at the 
right time may produce immediate and often surprising develop- 
ment of lung capacity. The same attempts with boys of twelve 
utterly fail because the nascent period has not yet come. Don- 
aldson demonstrated that forcing open the eyelid of a young 
kitten prematurely and stimulating with light arrested the devel- 
opment of medullation. 1 He also wrote of arrested development 
in another connection, saying: "Development and the changes 
involved in growing old, are by no means synonymous, so that 
although in those animals with a fixed size there are always to 
be found undeveloped cells, yet it is not a correct inference that 
these cells are also young in the sense that they might still com- 
plete their development. It appears, rather, that the capacity 
for undergoing expansive change is transient, and that those 
cells which fail to react during the proper growing period of an 
animal have lost their opportunity forever." 2 

Mistaken notions concerning the teaching of arithmetic and 
grammar have doubtless been responsible for a multitude of 
pedagogical sins. The formalist regards the course of study as 
a pedagogical grindstone upon which the wits of the child are 
to be sharpened. We remember in this connection Robert 
Recorde's arithmetic book called The Whetstone of Witte. 
Mathematics is said to develop the reasoning powers and many 
have believed that the earlier it could be introduced the greater 
would be the development. Little children have been forced 
to take it in allopathic doses in the hope of prying up their 
reasoning powers. Abstractions in grammar have been like- 
wise forced upon them. Not only have the children failed to 
comprehend the abstractions, but their reasoning powers have 
been stunted and dwarfed rather than developed. The forcing 
process caused arrest of development. 

Dr. Harris, former Commissioner of Education, was the first 
to call attention in a striking way to the subject of arrested de- 
velopment in education caused through overtraining. He 
remarked that the attempt of many teachers, in their very 

1 Hall, Adolescence, vol. I, p. 207, 2 Growth oj the Brain, p. 37. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 177 

zeal for good teaching, "to secure what is called thoroughness 
in the branches taught in the elementary schools, is often carried 
too far; in fact, to such an extent as to produce arrested develop- 
ment (a sort of mental paralysis) in the mechanical and formal 
stages of growth. The mind in that case loses its appetite for 
higher methods and wider generalizations. The law of apper- 
ception, we are told, proves that the temporary methods of solv- 
ing problems should not be so thoroughly mastered as to be used 
involuntarily, or as a matter of unconscious habit, for the reason 
that a higher and more adequate method will then be found 
difficult to acquire. The more thoroughly a method is learned 
the more it becomes a part of the mind, and the greater the 
repugnance of the mind toward a new method. For this reason 
parents and teachers discourage young children from the prac- 
tice of counting on the fingers, believing that it will cause much 
trouble later to root out this vicious habit and replace it by 
purely mental processes. Teachers should be careful, especially 
with precocious children, not to continue too long in the use of a 
process that is becoming mechanical; for it is already growing 
into a second nature, and becoming a part of the unconscious 
apperceptive process by which the mind reacts against the 
environment, recognizes its presence, and explains it to itself. 
The child that has been overtrained in arithmetic reacts apper- 
ceptive^ against his environment chiefly by noticing its nu- 
merical relations — he counts and adds; his other apperceptive re- 
actions being feeble he neglects qualities and causal relations." 1 
It is more important that the child should learn to curb his 
temper, control his fists and tongue when under provocation, 
bear defeat and pain heroically, move his muscles economically 
and gracefully, stand surprises without shock, abstain from strong 
drink, tobacco, and vicious habits, than to know the multiplica- 
tion table or grammar. The Scriptures even go so far as to 
assert that "He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that tak- 
eth a city." But positive control is a much higher control than 

1 Harris, W. T., "The Study of Arrested Development in Children as Pro- 
duced by Injudicious Methods," Education, 20: 453-456. 



178 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

negative. The child who goes into tantrums, pampers his appe- 
tites, shirks his lessons, escapes all physical labor, has his will 
hopelessly arrested. Habits of righteous volition must be in- 
grained early or the man is doomed to go through life a nerveless 
sentimentalist. No one ever develops athletic prowess after 
maturity, nor is it much more possible to develop positive moral 
virtues unless the foundations have been laid in childhood and 
youth. 

Arrest of religious development may occur through precocity 
induced by too early memoriter learning of dogmatic forms and 
formulas. The acquisition of any proverb or formula not under- 
stood may bias wrongly one's whole course of life. We all 
know how the unfortunate knowledge of the superstitions con- 
cerning the number 13, Friday, charms, omens, and amulets 
torments us and even causes us to act upon them although 
against our best judgment. Similarly antiquated medical 
advice which we learned when young, and which is sometimes 
absolutely pernicious, is so hard to abandon that we heed it even 
at our peril. In the same way dogmas and formulas which 
really possess symbolical or metaphorical meaning are accepted 
literally and in their distorted misinterpretation become perma- 
nent mental possessions. Our minds become so indurated with 
these modes of functioning that higher and truer development 
becomes impossible. The child's mind perceives things literally 
and in the concrete, but abstractions in science and morals, 
which are mumbled and misinterpreted, become a menace to 
higher growth. On the other hand, to fail to give the child the 
concrete foundations in science, conduct, or religion means that 
subsequent comprehension of abstractions is forever precluded. 
Many a man who might have become a scientist by learning early 
the concrete facts out of which higher concepts could be evolved, 
has never glimpsed scientific realms because his early experiences 
have contributed no background of apperceiving masses. Like- 
wise in morals and religion, lack of concrete personal experiences 
out of which diviner conceptions could evolve has doomed many 
to dwarfed moral and religious development. 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 179 

Summary and Conclusions. — The study of instinct reveals 
very clearly that mankind is not a finished product but that the 
race is ever in the making. There is ceaseless change. There 
can be no standstill. The change may be either upward or 
downward, progressive or degenerative. The same forces which 
produce fuller, more abundant racial life, if perverted, may 
cause degradation and extinction. The effects of life experi- 
ences — education — do not cease with the individual. All pos- 
terity shares in the heritage received by the individual and modi- 
fied by his life. The life experiences of one generation become 
the impulses of the next and all future ones. 

Education is thus magnified in importance. The full realiza- 
tion of its meaning should lead from selfishness to the highest 
altruism. It is the business of education to select and create 
for perpetuity those instincts which will contribute to the develop- 
ment of the highest ideals of life. Harmful instincts should be 
allowed to atrophy through disuse or to be shunted off into useful 
channels. For example, many tendencies toward vice, immo- 
rality, and crime should be allowed to decay by accentuating 
good impulses. In some cases they must even be considered as 
diseases and therefore combated. All organic diseases, mental 
defects, and moral degeneracy should be eliminated. Purposive 
selection should be employed to aid chance natural selection. 
Purposive selection should even correct natural tendencies, for 
heredity preserves defects as well as excellencies. In many 
cases the continuation of characters represents no selective 
process. Heredity simply continues what has been acquired in 
previous generations. For example, ugliness is never perpetu- 
ated through selection, but heredity nevertheless causes it to 
persist through generation after generation of the same 
family. 

One great problem of education is to so understand instinct 
as to correlate the individual with his environment and secure 
the fullest and richest measure of life. Each individual should 
be more highly developed than his ancestors and should have 
fewer undesirable tendencies. Getting rid of original sin means 



180 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

eliminating some harmful hereditary traits, abridging others, 
and shunting others. 

Pessimists often raise the cry that no race progress is dis- 
cernible. They argue that the world is no better to-day than 
four thousand years ago, that no one possesses a higher grade of 
intellect than in the earliest historic times. There is no warrant 
for such pessimism. There were giant intellects in the palmy 
days of Greece and Rome, and in the time of the Pharaohs, but 
the world average then was vastly lower than now. It may 
even be seriously doubted whether the giants of old would be so 
conspicuous were they alive to-day. The high level of to-day 
might make them sink out of sight by comparison. To-day 
there are thousands planning and executing enterprises as gigan- 
tic as the erection of the pyramids or the generalship of the 
Peloponnesian War. In every civilized country there are many 
writers, statesmen, kings of finance, inventors, scholars, edu- 
cators, who have accomplished as great things as are recorded 
in the annals of ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, or Palestine. 
They may never be singled out because the same degree of in- 
telligence is so common. 

That new instincts, physical, intellectual, and moral, have been 
developed, and are being developed, there can be no doubt. 
That some impulses have become atrophied and are dying out 
there is equally little doubt. The uniform attainments in poetry, 
music, scholarship, statesmanship, and commerce are greater 
than ever before, and it is reasonable to suppose that there is 
a close relationship between attainments and ability. Many 
troublesome instincts like pugnacity, selfishness, and sensuality 
are becoming subdued and controlled. The higher instincts of 
reason, morality, conscience, altruism, and religion have become 
expanded and strengthened. We now have less of war, carnage, 
gluttony, and lust, and more of refined courage, altruism, and 
love, than ever before in the world's history. The deeds of men 
as recorded in the annals of history, sacred and profane, make 
a splendid record of the growth of the higher and nobler powers 
and the crushing to heel of the baser instincts. The very fact 



INSTINCT IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 181 

of the conservation of energy teaches that forces may become 
cumulative and tendencies or impulses to action be created. 
The facts of memory, habit, and heredity lead to the same in- 
evitable conclusion. If we believe in evolution and the develop- 
ment of civilized man from primitive savagery, we cannot escape 
it; for is not the greatest difference between savagery and 
civilization one of instincts? 

When we remember that interests are determined largely by 
instincts, it is at once seen that a knowledge of instinct is of great 
importance in determining courses of study. In the light of a 
knowledge of instinct the course of study is adapted to the capaci- 
ties of individuals. The school is fitted to the child rather than 
the child to the school. The intelligent administration of the 
entire elective system must be thoroughly grounded upon a 
knowledge of the fundamental instinctive powers of the indi- 
vidual. There have been altogether too many misfits in the 
world because of a lack of recognition of innate possibilities and 
needs. Education is not only to minister to thoroughly apparent 
needs and interests of the individual, but one of its most im- 
portant functions is to discover interests and aptitudes. 

A better knowledge of nascent periods of development would 
effect many readjustments in the position of different subjects 
and topics in the curriculum. ! Already the fruits of even our 
limited knowledge of the subject are becoming apparent. The 
kindergarten work has been remodelled, formal arithmetic work 
is disappearing from the primary grades, concrete work is finding 
its place in the elementary schools, elementary algebra and con- 
crete geometry have been shifted from the high school to the 
grammar school, and the abstract arithmetic has been relegated 
to the high school. Formal grammar is less emphasized in 
elementary work, and ought to be pushed still higher up. It is 
being recognized in practice that modern foreign languages can 
be most advantageously begun between seven and twelve. 
There are well-marked stages in the growth of interest and power 
in drawing which should serve as a guide in arranging drawing 
courses. Already the ultra-logical course in drawing has been 



182 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

replaced by a more rational psychological arrangement recog- 
nizing the well-marked stages of development. The organiza- 
tion of manual training departments and schools is in part a 
tacit recognition on the part of educators x that the instincts for 
motor activity and of constructiveness are the most valuable 
allies in the training of childhood and youth, and must be 
utilized if education is to be normal and balanced. The head, 
the hand, and the heart, metaphorically speaking, all have 
claims asserting themselves which must be recognized if we 
would avoid malformation. As a final illustration, we may cite 
the recent recognition of the peculiar period of adolescence. 
The main value of the recent study of adolescence has been in 
the appreciation that there is a special time of budding of the 
most powerful instincts of the human race. The proper ad- 
justment of the curriculum and the better recognition of nascent 
periods of development would guard against arrest of develop- 
ment, and enable educators to co-operate with nature in develop- 
ing children normally from one stage to another and into the 
fullest and noblest manhood and womanhood made possible 
through the heritage bequeathed to each. 

1 The people see in them doubtless only utilitarian ends and support them 
on that account. 



\ 



\ 



CHAPTER IX 

NATURE AND NURTURE: INHERITANCE AND 
EDUCATION 

Meaning and Illustrations of Heredity. — It is a law of nature 
that the descendants of individuals tend to be like their ancestors. 
Every one knows that children are apt to look like their parents 
or near relatives, to have similar dispositions, and to have many 
characteristics common to the family group. This law of 
transmission and reproduction of ancestral traits in descendants 
is termed heredity. President David Starr Jordan says: x 
"There is something inherent in each developing animal that 
gives it an identity of its own. Although in its young stages it 
may be indistinguishable from some other kind of animal in 
similar stages, it is sure to come out, when fully developed, an 
individual of the same kind as its parents were or are. The 
young fish and the young salamander are indistinguishably 
alike, but one embryo is sure to develop into a fish and the other 
into a salamander. This certainty of an embryo to become an 
individual of a certain kind is called the law of heredity." This 
is the great conservative force in nature. Through heredity 
evolution is also made possible, since variations once established 
tend to be transmitted to posterity. 

Heredity of Physical Structure. — Heredity of physical struct- 
ure is everywhere apparent among human beings. It may 
manifest itself in stature, weight, length of limbs, color of eyes 
or hair, facial features, expression, etc. Children are often said 
to be exact images of father, mother, or grandparents. Among 
animals resemblances of young to parents are equally striking. 
The same laws are observable in plants. It may be safely pre- 

1 Animal Life, p. 88. 
183 



184 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

dieted that a grain of corn or any other plant seed will produce 
under ordinary conditions a new plant of the same kind and 
of similar size, form, and color as that which bore the seed. 
These facts are all too obvious to need more than suggestion. 
Internal structures as well as external are governed by the laws 
of heredity. The various proportions of the cranium, thorax, 
vertebras, teeth, the peculiarities of the circulatory system and 
the nervous system, which are manifest in a given individual will 
probably be found upon investigation to be characteristics 
common to his ancestry and his posterity. Ribot tells us that 
"There are some families in which the heart and the principal 
blood-vessels are naturally very large; others in which they are 
comparatively small; and others, again, which present identical 
faults of conformation." The nervous system, especially the 
brain, seems to follow a certain type in a given family or "line 
of ascent." Length of natural life is doubtless an ancestral 
bequest. In a family where there is a centenarian there is 
almost sure to be a large number who live to a very old age, 
exceeding their allotted "three score years and ten." Ribot 
writes that, "longevity depends far less on race, climate, pro- 
fession, mode of life or food, than on hereditary transmission." * 

Thomson says that "not less striking than the long persist- 
ence of specific and stock characters is the fact that offspring 
frequently reproduce the individual peculiarities — both normal 
and abnormal — of their parents or ancestors. A slight structural 
peculiarity, such as a lock of white hair or an extra digit, may 
persist for several generations. A slight functional peculiarity, 
such as left-handedness, has been recorded for at least four 
generations, and color-blindness for five." 2 

Hereditary Disease Tendencies. — While specific diseases as 
such are probably not directly heritable, it is none the less true 
that tendencies to disease are very definitely inherited. A 
disease, according to Martius, is a process injurious to the organ- 
ism. "The process," says Thomson, 3 "is not transmitted, but 

1 Ribot, Heredity, pp. 3 and 5. 

' J. Arthur Thomson, Heredity, p. 70. * Op. cit., p. 265. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 185 

the potentiality of it is involved in some peculiarity in the 
organization of the germ plasm." The same authority writes 
that: "There are endless illustrations of the fact that a patho- 
logical diathesis — rheumatic, gouty, neurotic, or the like — may 
persist and express itself similarly, even in spite of altered condi- 
tions of life, throughout many generations." * While microbic 
diseases are not directly heritable, it should not be supposed 
for a moment that children of parents afflicted with such diseases 
as tuberculosis are no more liable to it than are children of 
parents entirely free from it. In a strict biological sense the 
disease is not transmitted, but the devitalized constitution giving 
a predisposition is heritable. Karl Pearson has recently made 
statistical studies on the subject, 2 and Woods asserts that he 
"has found cogent proof in the first of these studies that the 
phthisical diathesis is just as hereditary as any human charac- 
teristic we know about." 3 Thomson remarks that "the fact 
that tubercular disease may be a shadow over a family history 
for generations is doubtless mainly due to an inheritance of what 
began as a truly germinal or blastogenic variation, which is only 
a biological way of expressing what the physician means by a 
'particular predisposition,' 'a tubercular temperament,' 'a 
diathesis' and so on." 4 

Good and poor eyesight are family characteristics. Congenital 
blindness sometimes occurs in several generations of the same 
family. In one family thirty-seven children and grandchildren 
became blind between their seventeenth and eighteenth years. 
Of another family, a father and his four children all became 
blind at the age of twenty-one. 5 "Color-blindness," says 
Ribot, "is notoriously hereditary. The distinguished English 
chemist, Dalton, was so affected, as were also two of his brothers. 
Sedgwick discovered that color-blindness occurs oftener in men 

1 Op. cit., p. 70. 

2 Pearson, A First Study of the Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis : Dulau 
and Co., London, 1907. 

3 Woods, The American Naturalist, 42: 691. 

4 Op. cit., p. 284. 

6 Sedgwick, British and Foreign Medical and Chirurgical Review, 1861. 



186 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

than in women." Darwin wrote: 1 "Myopia is said to be 
becoming hereditary among certain civilized nations, especially 
the Germans." Particular types of hearing are doubtless 
hereditary. Although the offspring of a deaf-mute and a person 
of sound hearing are seldom deaf, yet where both parents are 
mute their children are apt to be deaf or to be afflicted with some 
kindred disease. In the Deaf and Dumb Institution in London: 
"Among 148 pupils in the institution at one time, there was one 
in whose family were 5 deaf-mutes; another in whose family 
there were 4. In the families of 11 of the pupils there were 3 
each; and in the families of 19, 2 each." 2 The brothers and 
sisters of the deaf are deaf in 245 cases in 1,000. The child of 
deaf parents is 259 times as likely to be deaf as if its parents were 
normal. 3 "Out of 901 admissions to an asylum, 477 had insane 
relatives; out of 321 cases of epilepsy, 105 had a family taint 
(about 35 per cent.); out of 208 cases of hysteria, 165 had a 
family taint (about 80 per cent.) . Various specialists on mental 
disorders have found reason to believe in hereditary transmission 
in from 25 to 85 per cent, of their patients, the diversity being 
doubtless in part due to the great variety of nervous diseases." 4 
Again, because a specific disease afflicting a parent does not 
reappear in the children the belief in heredity is often weakened. 
But it is becoming understood that the specific defects are not 
necessarily those of the ancestors, but rather the result of 
weakened or abnormal vitality. There are many diseases which 
seem to be closely related because they arise under similar condi- 
tions of weakened vitality, e. g., tuberculosis, scrofula, and many 
glandular and skin diseases. The specific disease may be pul- 
monary consumption, scrofulous tumor, or cancer. There is 
a whole train of afflictions akin to deaf-mutism. Congenital 
deaf-mutes are usually defective in mind and body. Ordinary 
deaf-mutism is closely allied to idiocy, and is one of the heredi- 
tary neuroses. "In the family of the deaf-mute, inquiry will 

1 Variation of Plants, II, p. 70. See also August Cohn, Hygiene des Auges. 

2 Ribot, Heredity, p. 42. 

3 E. A. Fay, Marriage of the Deaf in America, p. 49. 
* Thomson, Heredity, p. 294. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 187 

frequently discover idiotic, epileptic, blind, or scrofulous brothers 
and sisters; dipsomania, insanity, epilepsy, phthisis, or imbecil- 
ity in the parents or earlier ancestors, and like conditions in 
collateral branches of the family. . . . Occasionally a whole 
family is frund deaf and dumb." 1 Insanity is almost insepara- 
bly connected with neurotic degeneracy and according to Sachs, 2 
"Heredity is the potent factor in the causation of juvenile and 
adult insanity." Thomson says that a specific nervous predis- 
position may be heritable but in most cases it is "a general 
predisposition to some dislocation or derangement of the ner- 
vous system." Clouston says: "A neurotic heredity is seen to 
resolve itself into general morbid tendencies rather than direct 
proclivities to special diseases." 3 

Thus we see that specific diseases are usually the manifesta- 
tion of general constitutional degeneracy. This is especially 
true of diseases of the nervous system. Any disease affecting 
this system is indicative of neurotic conditions. The particular 
disease may vary with succeeding generations. In one it may 
be a sensory defect; in another, epilepsy; in another, tendency 
toward bad habits; in another, malformation, especially of the 
head and facial features; in another, speech defects; in another, 
hypersensitivity. So long as the predispositions exist the dis- 
ease may in a certain sense be termed hereditary. Like any 
memory, its identity may be lost in the complex of forces, but it 
just as truly helps to determine the final resultant. 

Life-insurance companies place the utmost confidence in 
heredity. They make the most searching inquiries concerning 
the health of ancestors and relatives. Many a person is rejected 
solely on grounds of hereditary taints, even though he may be 
apparently a perfect risk. Insanity and suicidal tendencies are 
regarded with extreme suspicion. Diseases frequently, and de- 
generacy always, have a family history. In discussing the ques- 
tion frequently only the immediate parents are considered, when 

1 S. A. K. Strahan, Marriage and Disease, p. 163. 

2 Nervous Diseases of Children, p. 610. 

3 Thomson, op. cit., pp. 280, 281, 294. 



1 88 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the whole complex of ancestral bequests must be taken into 
account. 

Heredity of Mental Characteristics : General. — Darwin wrote: 
"The tenacity of instincts is so great and their hereditary trans- 
mission so certain, that sometimes they are found to outlive for 
centuries the conditions of life to which they are adapted." 
"We have reason to believe,' says Ribot, "that aboriginal 
habits are long retained under domestication. Thus with the 
common ass we see signs of its original desert life in its strong 
dislike to cross the smallest stream of water, and in its pleasure 
in rolling in the dust. The same dislike to cross a stream is 
common to the camel, which has been domesticated from a very 
early period." * 

Of the great conserving power of memory, Ribot writes: 
"We daily experience thousands of perceptions, but none of 
these, however vague and insignificant, can perish utterly. 
After thirty years some effort — some chance occurrence, some 
malady — may bring them back; it may even be without recogni- 
tion. Every experience we have had lies dormant within us: 
the human soul is like a deep and sombre lake, of which light 
reveals only the surface; beneath, there lives a whole world of 
animals and plants, which a storm or an earthquake may sud- 
denly bring to light before the astonished consciousness. 

"Both theory and fact, then, agree in showing that in the 
moral, no less than in the physical world, nothing is lost. An 
impression made on the nervous system, occasions a permanent 
change in the cerebral structure, and produces a like effect 
in the mind — whatever may be understood by that term. A 
nervous impression is no momentary phenomenon that appears 
and disappears, but rather a fact which leaves behind it a lasting 
result — something added to previous experience and attaching 
to it ever afterward. Not, however, that the perception exists 
continuously in the consciousness; but it does continue to exist 
in the mind in such a manner that it may be recalled to the 
consciousness." 2 

1 Ribot, Heredity, p. 16. 2 Ribot, Heredity, p. 48. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 189 

Mosso writes: "Destiny leads each one of us with a fatal 
inheritance. Though we were abandoned in a forest, impris- 
oned in the dungeon of a tower, without a guide, without exam- 
ple, without light, there would yet awake in us like a mysterious 
dream, the experience of our parents and our earliest ancestors. 
What we call instinct is the voice of past generations reverberat- 
ing like a distant echo in the cells of the nervous system. We 
feel the breath, the advice, the experience of all men, from those 
who lived on acorns and struggled with the wild beasts, dying 
naked in the forest, down to the virtue and toil of our father, 
to the fear and love of our mother." 1 

We are somewhat surprised to find that heredity of mental 
traits has been recognized only a short time. Sir Francis Galton 
said 2 in 1865: "The human mind was popularly thought to 
act independently of natural laws, and to be capable of al- 
most any achievement, if compelled to exert itself by a will that 
had a power of initiation. Even those who had more phil- 
osophical habits of thought were far from looking upon the 
mental faculties of each individual as being limited with as 
much strictness as those of his body, still less was the idea of 
the hereditary transmission of ability clearly apprehended." 
Still we must remember that the doctrine of innate ideas 
as held by the Middle-Age philosophers held sway until a 
very recent time. In fact, it is a half belief of the popular 
mind still. 

Heredity of Memory. — Ribot makes an interesting and ex- 
haustive study of the heredity of various psychological powers, 
including memory, imagination, the will, instinct, the sentiments 
and passions. He shows that memory is indeed merely a dis- 
position of nervous tissue on the one hand and of the mind on 
the other to act again in a way in which they once have acted. 
Memory is a dynamic relation existing among various elements. 
It is habit in the making. Consequently there are various types 
of dynamic possibilities. A given type, he believes, is apt to be 
characteristic of the various members of a family. He mentions 

1 Fear, p. 63. 2 Hereditary Genius, Preface. 



i 9 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

several cases to support his view: "The two Senecas were 
famed for their memory: Marcus Annaeus could repeat two 
thousand words in the order in which he heard them; the son, 
Lucius Annaeus, was also, though less highly, gifted in this 
respect. According to Galton, in the family of Richard Porson, 
one of the Englishmen most distinguished as a Greek scholar, 
this faculty was so extraordinary as to become proverbial — the 
Porson memory." 1 

Hereditary Imagination. — Families are often renowned for 
their special types of imagination. Among painters it is not at 
all uncommon to find several generations of especially gifted 
artists. In the family of Titian were nine painters of great 
merit. Cagliari had several relatives who were nearly as illus- 
trious as himself. A catalogue of names of painters who have 
belonged to families celebrated for their artistic genius must 
contain such names as Rafael, Van Dyck, Murillo, and Claude 
Lorrain. Ribot says: "A glance at any history of painting, 
or a visit to a few museums, will show that families of painters 
are not rare. In England you have the Landseers; in France 
the Bonheurs. Every one has heard of the Bellinis, Caraccios, 
Teniers, Van Ostades, Mieris, Van der Veldes. In a list of 
forty-two painters — Italian, Spanish, and Flemish — held to be 
of the highest rank, Galton found twenty-one that had illustrious 
relatives." 2 

Another type of imagination which can be easily studied for 
hereditary tendencies is the musical type. Sebastian Bach was 
the greatest of an extraordinarily gifted family of musicians. 
The family began in 1550, and was illustrious through at least 
eight generations. Beginning with Weit Bach, the Presburg 
baker, we have a record of an " unbroken line of musicians of the 
same name that for nearly two centuries overran Thuringia, 
Saxony, and Franconia." In the family there were twenty-nine 
eminent musicians. The names of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, 
Mozart, and Haydn all represent families famed for their mu- 
sical abilities. 

1 Heredity, p. 53. 2 Heredity, p. 60. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 191 

Science, Literature, Generalship. — Galton has shown us that it 
is not rare to find many members of the same family eminent in 
science. Among those who have come from families of intel- 
lectual distinction may be instanced Plato, Aristotle, Francis 
Bacon, Cuvier, Darwin, Franklin, Galileo, Herschel, Humboldt, 
Leibnitz, Mill, Pliny, Stephenson, and Watt. Among well- 
known family names in literature the following are splendid 
examples: Addison, Arnold, Bronte, Grotius, Helvetius, Les- 
sing, Macaulay, Schlegel, Seneca, de Stael, Swift, and Stowe. 
Galton shows that the great commanders in history have all 
belonged to families which had many individuals eminent in 
some direction or other. From among the most striking exam- 
ples the following may be selected: Alexander, Philip, the 
Ptolemies, Bonaparte, Cassar, Charlemagne, Cromwell, Gusta- 
vus Adolphus, Hannibal, Wellington, and he might have added 
Washington. I should not argue that particular callings are 
determined by heredity. That is largely a matter of imitation 
or chance. But the high-grade intellectual ability necessary to 
these callings is determined by heredity. 

Families of Statesmen. — In studying statesmen as a class to 
determine whether the qualities that make statesmen are hered- 
itary, Galton believes that there are abundant facts to prove it. 
He mentions the names of many illustrious statesmen who have 
belonged to families in which many members have achieved 
deservedly high reputations. Among these are: Pitt, Erskine, 
Marlborough, Brougham, Walpole, Romilly, Palmerston, Gren- 
ville, Fox, Wilberforce, Cromwell, Adams, Mirabeau, and 
Richelieu. He says: "The statesman's type of ability is 
largely transmitted or inherited. It would be tedious to count 
the instances in favor. . . . The combination of high intel- 
lectual gifts, tact in dealing with men, power of expression in de- 
bate, and ability to endure exceeding hard work, is hereditary." 1 

Families of Jurists. — Galton's study of eminent English 
judges included so large a number of fathers, sons, grand- 
fathers, and grandsons in the list that he is positive in his con- 

1 Hereditary Genius, p. 103. 



i 9 2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

elusions that judicial qualities are special and transmitted from 
generation to generation. He says that: 1 "Out of the two 
hundred and eighty-six judges, more than one in every nine of 
them have been either father, son or brother to another judge, 
and the other high legal relationships have been more numerous. 
There cannot, then, remain a doubt but that the peculiar type 
of ability that is necessary to a judge is often transmitted by 
descent." 

Reasons for Exceptions. — Many great men and women have 
not had illustrious children; in fact, a very large number have 
remained unmarried, choosing rather between family life and a 
great work of which the world seemed to stand in need. Again, 
many have married companions inferior in capacity and have 
had children resembling the other parent. Then, again, through 
a lawful trick which heredity frequently plays, the children 
resemble much more remote ancestry than their immediate 
parents. Hence it is not to be wondered at that an illustrious 
father does not always have children who come to distinction. 

History of the Juke Family. — In 1877, R. Dugdale published 
in the thirtieth annual report of the New York prison com- 
mission, a study of the so-called Juke family. Juke is a name 
given to a large family of degenerates. It is not the real name 
of the family, but a general term applied to forty-two different 
families whose ancestry could be traced to one particular man. 
The father of the Juke family, Dugdale termed Max. He was 
of Dutch stock, born about 1720. He was shiftless, played 
truant, and was a general vagabond. He married a woman as 
worthless as himself. They reared a family of vagabonds and 
these children in due time intermarried with other vagabonds. 
By 1877, in five generations, there were 540 direct descendants 
and about 700 of more distant relation: 310 of the 1,200 were 
professional paupers, 7 were murderers, 60 were habitual thieves, 
130 were criminals who were frequently convicted of crime, 300 
died in infancy, while 400 more were physically degenerate. 
Only 20 of the 1,200 learned a trade and 10 of those learned it 

1 Op. cit., p. 62. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 193 

in a state prison. They had cost the State of New York $1,000 
apiece, including all men, women, and children; a total of 
$1,250,000. 

History of Jonathan Edwards's Family. — In 1898, Dr. A. E. 
Whiship, who had made a study of the Jukes, determined to 
make a study of some desirable family to offset the appalling 
record of the Jukes. He selected for his study Jonathan 
Edwards, who was born October 5, 1703. While Max Juke 
was the founder of a family of 1,200, mostly paupers and 
criminals, he found that Jonathan Edwards was the founder of 
a family of 1,400 of the world's noblemen, most of whom have 
left the world better for having lived in it. It is possible here 
to cite only a few of the illustrious descendants of Jonathan 
Edwards. In Yale alone there have been more than 120 
graduates who were direct descendants; among these are nearly 
20 Dwights, as many by the name of Edwards, 7 Woolseys, 8 
Porters, 5 Johnsons, and several of most of the following names: 
Chapin, Winthrop, Shoemaker, Hoadley, Lewis, Mather, 
Reeve, Rowland, Carmalt, Devereaux, Weston, Heermance, 
Whitney, Blake, Collier, Scarborough, Yardley, Gilman, Ray- 
mond, Wood, Morgan, Bacon, Ward, Foote, Cornelius, Shepard, 
Bristow, Wickerham, Doubleday, Van Valkenberg, Robbins, 
Tyler, Miller, Lyman, Pierpont. Mr. Churchill, author of 
Richard Carvel, .is a recent graduate. In Amherst there were 
at one time of this family, President Gates and Professors 
Mather, Tyler, and Todd. There is not a leading college in the 
country in which their names are not to be found recorded. 
They have not only furnished thirteen college presidents and one 
hundred or more professors, but they have founded many im- 
portant academies and seminaries in New Haven and Brooklyn, 
all through the New England States, and in the Middle, Western, 
and Southern States. Not only have they furnished scholars, 
but statesmen, lawyers, financiers, and other men and women of 
high rank in practically every walk of life. One hundred and 
thirty-five books of merit have been written by the family, 
eighteen journals and periodicals of large importance have been 



i 9 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

edited by them, and several of them founded by members of the 
family. Several descendants have been among the most illus- 
trious men of their time. Examples of these are, President 
Timothy Dwight, President Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Dr. 
Theodore W. Dwight, President of Columbia College Law 
School, and Daniel Coit Gilman. The only notable black sheep 
in the flock was Aaron Burr, Edwards's grandson, and there is 
no question that he possessed great mental acumen. But for a 
single unfortunate characteristic and the custom of the time, 
which allowed this trait to go unchecked, Burr might have been 
one of the great instead of being numbered among the dis- 
honored. At forty-nine he was one of the most brilliant, most 
admired, and most beloved men in the United States. For 
thirty years his career had few American parallels. 1 

Environment Insufficient Explanation. — Perhaps some one 
may contend that the foregoing shows the result of environment 
rather than hereditary tendencies. The rejoinder should be 
made that the environment in a large way was practically the 
same for the Juke family as for the Edwards. The periods are 
synchronous and there was no great difference between New 
York and Massachusetts. It could have been no chance of 
environment which made nearly all of one family differ from all 
of the other. If environment were really so potent as many 
claim, the sameness of environment should have brought the two 
families as a whole to the same level. 

It is not here argued that environment has no effect in deter- 
mining the ultimate development of individuals. The effects 
are very consequential. One who disbelieved in them should 
not remain in the ranks of educators. But there are very defi- 
nite limits beyond which the effects of environment exercise 
no control. No amount of feeding could make a mastiff of a 
poodle. No amount of underfeeding could limit the growth 
of the mastiff to the size of the poodle. Similarly no amount 

1 See Jukes-Edwards : A Study in Education and Heredity. Consult alsc, 
Fisher, Report on National Vitality, 1909, p. 53; Woods, F. A., Mental and 
Moral Heredity, 1909; " The Jukes," A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease 
and Heredity, 1877. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 195 

of training could make a Shakespeare of an idiot. Shake- 
speare even though untrained would have been a marked man. 
We must keep in mind a distinction between great mental 
power and reputation; between ability and success. Obscurity 
is not a necessary correlate of weakness. Many intellectual 
giants have been obscure. A distinction must also be made 
between biological and social heredity; between intellectual 
power and the use to which one puts this power. Biological 
heredity determines largely what mental capacity shall be, but 
social heredity and environment determine largely what use 
shall be made of physical and intellectual powers. Morality is 
much more influenced by environment than is intellectual 
strength. Whether one makes locks or picks them is much in- 
fluenced by one's environment, but the capacity to do either is a 
matter of native endowment. 

General Mental Endowments. — Although "strength of mind" 
is a rather general quality, yet it is perhaps a better basis on 
which to judge of hereditary tendencies than a more specific 
phase of mentality like memory, imagination, or will. It is 
still better than a special intellectual power, like power in math- 
ematics or literature. As is the case with instinct, powers are 
very plastic and may be applied in a variety of directions. 
Hence a study of the genealogy of great men, regardless of the 
particular direction in which power was expressed, ought to be 
considered good evidence. The avenue of expression is doubt- 
less to a considerable degree determined by environing circum- 
stances. To the possible objection that greatness itself might 
be determined by environment the rejoinder should be made 
that while environment may and doubtless does prevent many 
cases of greatness from ever developing, yet environment alone 
never produced a genius. In fact, it may be doubted whether 
environment does much for the genius and the really great except 
to provide fortunate encouragement at an opportune time. 
Something more than mere schooling or the acquisition of in- 
herited social forces of civilization is necessary to give one 
genius or greatness. That something must be an inherited 



196 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

potentiality which gives one marked individuality, and for which 
neither the individual nor his environment is responsible or 
praiseworthy. 

After many years of investigation, Pearson in his "Huxley 
Lecture" for 1903, "On the Inheritance of the Mental and 
Moral Characters in Man, and its Comparison with the Inheri- 
tance of the Physical Characters," stated that "the degree of 
resemblance of the physical and mental characters of children is 
one and the same," or in other words, "we inherit our parents' 
tempers, our parents' conscientiousness, shyness, and ability, 
as we inherit their stature, forearm, and span." J 

The Cumulation of Effects. — Throughout this book it has 
been maintained that all experiences leave their ineffaceable 
trace and that the effects of experience are cumulative. They 
are conserved in the complex, though lost as identities. In this 
way variations arise and are preserved through heredity. The 
role of natural selection in determining what shall be preserved 
is duly recognized. But natural selection is not the origin of 
variations. As Harris says: "Natural selection may explain 
the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the 
fittest." 2 It is merely a means of continuance or preservation 
of them. Something more fundamental must be sought as the 
origin of variations. It has been assumed throughout the dis- 
cussion that the living organism is susceptible of influence ex- 
erted by environing forces or by exercise. Both the physical 
and the mental life are susceptible of thus being modified. 
These modifications are conserved and become an integral, 
dynamic part of the resulting complex. And because of the 
intimate connection existing between mind and body, no con- 
siderable change in either one but has some influence upon 
the other. 

Heredity or the conservator of racial experience, has its begin- 
nings in memory and is subject to all the laws governing mem- 

1 Journal Anthropological Institute, 32 : 179-237. 

2 Hugo De Vries, Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation, 1904, p. 
825. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 197 

ory. Evolution is dependent not alone upon the transmission 
of parental characters, but also upon variations from the type 
or norm. These variations are also dependent upon the laws 
of memory for their appearance. Environment continually 
affords a variety of stimuli to act upon all organisms. They 
become effective because of the plasticity of nervous substance. 
These effects become integrated into the complex organism, 
rendering it still more complex. They are conserved through 
the processes of growth. This capacity for growth and develop- 
ment is a property of all living tissue and is coextensive with 
life itself. 

In the preceding we have the explanation of the basal facts of 
heredity and evolution. The entire bridge between the simplest 
animals and the most complex has been built up in this way. 
The entire combination of dynamic relations existing in a given 
organism has become integrated together by this process. As 
Orr says: u The particular form of potential energy which 
exists in a chicken's egg, and determines into what it shall 
develop, did not exist in any living thing during the paleozoic era. 
It must have been acquired by the action of environment upon 
certain organisms." 1 Again he writes: "After a stimulus has 
acted upon an organism, and the organism has returned to what 
is called its normal condition, we must not suppose that the sec- 
ond normal condition is the same as the condition of the organism 
before the action of the stimulus; for the stimulus has caused a 
molecular change, and this change persists until some other 
force undoes it or intensifies it. The viscous living matter 
retains its impression, and is more impressionable than a solid 
body, of which Professor Maxwell has said, 'that the stress at 
any given instant depends, not only on the strain at that instant, 
but on the previous history of the body.'" 2 

Through long-continued repetitions both during the lifetime 
of an individual and during successive generations, certain proc- 
esses and structures become permanent. Each factor becomes 

1 A Theory of Development and Heredity, p. 81. 

2 Ibid., p. 98. 



/ 



198 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

associated with a multitude of other factors. Before any series 
of similar stimuli can produce an effect which would stand out 
as a new individual characteristic, it must integrate itself into 
the existing complex and modify the entire chain of associations. 
The processes of growth are exceedingly tenacious in perpetuat- 
ing any well-established chain of associations. This explains 
the difficulty of producing all at once modifications which would 
affect the chain of associations sufficiently to produce and perpet- 
uate a strikingly new characteristic. The changes go on so 
gradually that they are unnoticed and hence it is often asserted 
that acquired characteristics are not transmitted. They are 
doubtless just as certainly transmitted as acquired. As a matter 
of fact, absolutely new and noticeable characteristics are not 
acquired during the lifetime of the individual. Little more than 
was potentially present at birth is present during maturity. 
Some fundamental change may be made, but it is too slight for 
detection. Furthermore, since environment is the most simple 
and least intense during early life, i. e., during the period of 
plasticity, fewer modifications are effected than would be if 
early life were subjected to more impressive environment. 
Little real modification takes place after maturity is reached. 

Transmission of Acquired Modifications. — The question 
whether modifications acquired during the lifetime of an indi- 
vidual may be transmitted to offspring born subsequent to the 
acquisition of the modifications has been the subject of protracted 
discussion during the last quarter of a century. Lamarck had 
apparently thoroughly established the theory that acquired 
characters are transmitted, when Weismann and Gal ton each 
independently came to conclusions absolutely at variance with 
it. After many years of research, Weismann, in 1892, expressed 
the conviction that "all permanent — i. e., hereditary — variations 
of the body proceed from primary modifications of the primary 
constituents of the germ; and that neither injuries, functional 
hypertrophy and atrophy, structural variations due to the effect 
of temperature or nutrition, nor any other influence of environ- 
ment on the body, can be communicated to the germ cells and 



NATURE AND NURTURE 199 

so become transmissible." * Again he says: "We have been 
compelled — at least in my opinion — to consider that only those 
variations which are l blastogenic } and not those which are 'so- 
matogenic,' can be transmitted." 2 Weismann thus denies the 
possibility of the transmission of modifications acquired during 
the lifetime of an individual. He assumes that the germ cells 
contain a substance called germ-plasm, out of which the new 
individual is derived, one portion being used up in the develop- 
ment of the new body cells, the other portion passing on abso- 
lutely unchanged and forming the new germ plasm of the germ 
cells of the new individual. " The new germ cells arise, as far 
as their essential and characteristic substance is concerned, not 
at all out of the body of the individual, but direct from the parent 
germ cellT 3 According to his theory the process of the develop- 
ment of the body cells from a part of the unchanged germ-plasm 
and the transmission of the remainder in an absolutely un- 
changed condition is continued from generation to generation. 
Thus the germ-plasm through the ages remains unchanged for- 
ever. The germ-plasm is thus not derived from the body cells 
nor subject to modifications produced in the body. "The germ 
cells," says Wallace, "are related to one another in the same 
way as are a series of generations of unicellular organisms de- 
rived from one another by a continuous course of simple division. 
Thus the question of heredity is reduced to one of growth. A 
minute portion of the very same germ-plasm from which first 
the germ-cell and then the whole organism of the parent were 
developed, becomes the starting-point of the growth of the 
child." * 

Weismann's doctrine has made many converts, because the 
opposite is so difficult to prove objectively and because certain 
facts adduced by Weismann seem incontrovertible. Weismann 
argues that mutilations are never transmitted. He cites the 
negative experiments in cutting off the tails of mice through 

1 The Germ Plasm : A Theory of Heredity, translated by Parker and Ronnfeldt, 
p. 395. 2 Ibid., p. 411. 

8 Wallace, Darwinism, p. 438. 4 Ibid., p. 438. 



200 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

nineteen generations. 1 The case is not a fair type, and it is not 
surprising that the results are negative. Any critical scientist 
would have been able to predict it. 

When one considers the fundamental factors in heredity and 
variation, it is easy to see why mutilations would not be trans- 
mitted. The associations formed in the processes of growth 
have become so deep-seated that they are extremely difficult to 
change. The amputation of a limb or a tail after it has once 
grown is like trying to omit a single note in the middle of a scale 
that has been so long practised as to become automatic. The 
nervous system has repeated and thoroughly established the 
nervous co-ordinations which control growth in that direction. 
The action is in a negative direction, and according to the laws 
of habit in the nervous system is largely ineffective. To change 
a habit positive action in another direction must take place. 
Hence this one link in the chain of growth forces is operative 
in the nervous system even though momentarily disturbed by 
amputating the organ. The experiments performed by Brown- 
Sequard in producing epileptic guinea pigs by section of certain 
nerves are much more to the point. 

Weismann's doctrine seems untenable, in the first place, be- 
cause no part of a living organism remains absolutely unchanged, 
even through the life of that individual. Life means renewal of 
tissues disintegrated through life processes. As soon as this 
cycle of events ceases death ensues. Thus even the germ-plasm 
must constantly be renewed through processes of nutrition and 
growth. Nutrition is received through the medium of the 
bodily cells and therefore this elaboration of nourishment and 
its conveyance to the germ-plasm make the condition of the 
germ-plasm dependent upon the conditions of the body. This 
breaks down the theory that the germ cells"go on from generation 
to generation absolutely beyond influences that may affect the 
body. It is scarcely thinkable also that the body may be pro- 
foundly influenced by the germ-plasm, as is claimed, and still 
have no reciprocal effect upon the germ-plasm. 

1 Op. cit., p. 397. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 201 

Orr writes: 1 " Another objection to this theory of heredity — 
and it seems to me insuperable — lies in the supposition that the 
germ plasm may exist in the body, undoubtedly a living part of 
it, and still be no more affected by the changes which pass over 
the body, than if it were enclosed in an hermetically sealed vial. 
This idea seems to be based on a peculiar assumption in regard 
to the individuality of a cell, as though the neighboring cells of 
the same organism were as distinct from each other physiologi- 
cally as they are morphologically; or that the cell-walls are such 
firm and impermeable barriers that the molecular condition of 
one cell might be changed without affecting its neighbor." 

Eimer takes exactly the same view. He says: 2 "The germ- 
plasm cannot possibly, in my view, remain untouched by the 
influences which are at work on the whole organism during its 
life. Such an immunity would be a physiological miracle." 

A theory mediating between Lamarckianism and Weismann- 
ism, enunciated concurrently by Baldwin, Lloyd Morgan, and 
Osborn, is that of organic selection. This theory maintains 
that environment and use modify certain characters. They are 
not transmitted as an inheritance to succeeding generations. 
Through germinal union and other causes congenital variations 
are constantly produced in a variety of directions. At some 
time variation will take place in the direction which environ- 
ment is already emphasizing. Such congenital variations would 
of course be seized upon by natural selection and gradually in- 
tensified. 

Baldwin says 3 that "Acquired characters, or modifications, 
or individual adaptations . . . while not directly inherited, are 
yet influential in determining the course of evolution indirectly. 
For such modifications and accommodations keep certain ani- 
mals alive, in this way screen the variations which they represent 
from the action of natural selection, and so allow new variations 
in the same directions to arise in the next and following gen- 
erations; while variations in other directions . . . are lost." 

1 A Theory of Development and Heredity, p. 8. 

2 Organic Evolution, p. 13. 3 Development and Evolution, p. 138. 



202 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The "acquired characters," says Conn, "will serve to preserve 
the individual in the new conditions. . . . Each generation 
acquires these characters for itself so long as the conditions re- 
main the same. But the new characters, even though not con- 
genital, adapt the individual to its new conditions. . . . These 
individuals are therefore able to contend successfully in the 
struggle for existence, their acquired characters being just as 
useful to them as they would have been if congenital. This is 
repeated, generation after generation, similar acquired charac- 
ters being redeveloped by each generation. ... It is probable, 
indeed certain, that after a time some congenital variation will 
appear which will be of direct use to the animals in their new 
habits. . . . But when, perhaps after hundreds of generations, 
there does appear a congenital variation which aids the animal 
in its new habit — an old habit by this time — such variations will 
be selected and become a part of the inheritance of the race." x 
The only question that needs to be raised here is what is the 
cause of the congenital variations ? If they occur synchronously 
with the characters acquired by the individual through habit 
necessitated by environment, there is no doubt about the con- 
clusion. But is it not very improbable that pure chance varia- 
tions should ever accord with the acquired characters? There 
is no doubt that the real reason for the congenital variation is 
the accumulation of dynamic relations produced by 'the very 
environment or through continued use in a given direction. The 
congenital variation has not come by chance but as a definite 
result of energy applied in a specific direction sufficient to pro- 
duce motion in that direction. The growth and development 
is a resultant of many forces. The doctrine of the conservation 
of energy points unequivocally to this conclusion. Dr. G. 
Stanley Hall says: "Unless we insist upon extreme Weismann- 
ism, as few biologists now do, we must admit that the child 
born of generations of cultured ancestry has some advantage, 
even though these do not live to see their birth, over those born 
of the lowest classes, postnatal environment and nurture being 

1 The Method of Evolution, p. 305. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 203 

the same in the two cases. If this be so, each generation ought 
to add a little, infinitesimal though it be, to progress in that most 
ancient form of wealth and worth which birth bestows. If the 
old phrase that an ounce of heredity is worth a ton of education 
have any truth in it, rotation of classes, while it may have many 
advantages, is thus bought at a very dear price." 1 

Romanes wrote very definitely on this point, saying: "Mr. 
Darwin's theory does not, as many suppose that it does, ascribe 
the origin and development of all instincts to natural selection. 
This theory does, indeed, suppose that natural selection is an 
important factor in the process; but it neither supposes that it 
is the only factor, nor even that, in the case of numberless 
instincts, it has had anything at all to do with their formation. 
Take, for example, the instinct of wildness, or of hereditary fear 
as directed toward any particular enemy — say man. It has been 
the experience of travellers, who have first visited oceanic islands 
without human inhabitants and previously unvisited by man, 
that the animals are destitute of any fear of man. Under such 
circumstances the birds have been known to alight on the heads 
and shoulders of the new-comers, and wolves to come and eat 
meat held in one hand while a knife was held ready to slay them 
with the other. But this primitive fearlessness of man gradually 
passes into an hereditary instinct of wildness, as the special ex- 
periences of man's proclivities accumulate; and as this instinct 
is of too rapid a growth to admit of our attributing it to natural 
selection (not one per cent, of the animals having been destroyed 
before the instinct is developed) we can only attribute its growth 
to the effects of inherited observation. In other words, just as 
in the lifetime of the individual, adjustive actions which were 
originally intelligent, may, by frequent repetition become auto- 
matic, so, in the lifetime of the species, actions originally intelli- 
gent may, by frequent repetition and heredity, so unite their 
efforts on the nervous system that the latter is prepared, even be- 
fore individual experience, to perform adjustive actions mechani- 
cally which, in previous generations, were performed intelligently. 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, X, p. 306. 



204 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

This mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately called the 
'lapsing intelligence,' and it was fully recognized by Mr. Darwin 
as a factor in the formation of instinct." 1 

Cope in discussing the gradual evolution of new forms through 
progressive increments of structure says that either these changes 
are inherited or each generation must develop the structural 
changes for itself. This latter view he believes incorrect. He 
says: 2 "It is only necessary to examine the embryonic history 
of animals to show that it is entirely untenable. For if some or 
all of these acquired characters can be found present in the 
early stages of growth, as in the egg, the pupa, the foetus, etc., 
it becomes clear that such acquired characters have been in- 
herited. That such is the fact is abundantly demonstrated by 
embryological researches. This fact alone is sufficient to set at 
rest by an affirmative answer the question as to the inheritance 
of acquired characters. And that this answer applies to all time 
and to all evolution is made evident by the fact, which is dis- 
closed by paleontology, that all characters now congenital have 
been at some period or another acquired." In refutation of the 
stock argument that mutilations are non-transmissible he writes 
cogently: "Such negative evidence only demonstrates that 
such modifications of structure may not be inherited. A single 
undoubted example of the inheritance of a mutilation would 
prove that no insurmountable barrier to such inheritance' exists. 
And well-authenticated examples of such cases are known and 
will be mentioned later on." 

Special Evidences of Heritability of Acquired Characters. — In 
support of his contention, Cope brings forward three lines of 
evidence, viz.: (i) From embryology; (2) from paleontology; 
(3) from the breeding of animals. Under the first he cites the 
probable fact "that the segments of the body and limbs of the 
Arthropoda were originally produced by the movements of 
definite tracts on each other, during the period that the external 
surfaces were becoming hardened by chitinous or calcareous 

1 Romanes's Essays, pp. 30-32. 

2 Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, p. 401. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 205 

deposits. It is well known that this segmentation is no longer 
produced by this mechanical cause during the adolescent or 
any other post-embryonic stage of the life of the individual, but 
that it appears during the various stages of embryonic life, and is 
therefore inherited." * He mentions also the fact that during a 
certain stage of embryonic development of the rat the enamel- 
producing layer of the molar teeth undergoes a degeneration. 
The ancestors all possessed fully enamelled teeth at maturity, 
but lost the enamel through the abrasions due to ordinary use. 
This has reacted upon the functional activity of the enamel- 
producing structure during embryonic life. He regards this as 
a case of the transmission of mutilations incurred in the ordi- 
nary struggle for existence. Mutilations suffered in this way 
produce vital changes in metabolism and thus tend to become 
so permanently fixed as to be transmitted. 

In adducing paleontological evidence he demonstrates the 
gradual changes which occurred in the shells of the series of 
the nautiloid Cephalopoda during the successive geologic ages. 
In concluding his extended and convincing discussion he quotes 
Hyatt, from whom the particular facts are mainly secured: 
"These cumulative results favor the theory of tachygenesis 
(acceleration) and diplogenesis, and are opposed to the Weis- 
mannian hypothesis of the subdivision of the body into two 
essentially distinct kinds of plasm, the germ-plasm, which re- 
ceives and transmits acquired characteristics, and the somato- 
plasm, which, while it is capable of acquiring modifications, 
either does not or can not transmit them to descendants." 2 

The evidence from breeding is largely drawn from the authori- 
tative writings of Prof. Wm. H. Brewer of Yale University, 
long president of the Agricultural Society of Connecticut. 
Modifications are due to several different causes, such as (a) 
changes in nutrition, (b) exercise or disuse of function, (c) 
disease, (d) mutilation or injuries, (e) regional influences, i. e., 
change in locality. Brewer shows that breeders increase the 
size of a breed very largely by feeding, of course not ignoring 

1 Loc. cit., p. 404. ^ Ibid., p. 422. 



2 o6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

selection. But no successful attempt can be made by selection 
alone. "All the best breeders recognize the rule laid down by 
Darwin, that those characters are transmitted with most per- 
sistency which have been handed down through the longest line 
of ancestry. Breeders do not believe that the characters ac- 
quired through the feeding of a single ancestor, or generation of 
ancestors, can oppose more than a slight resistance to that force 
of heredity which has been accumulated through many preced- 
ing generations, and is concentrated from many lines of ancestry. 
Yet the belief is universal that the acquired character due to 
food during the growing period has some force, and that this 
force is cumulative in successive generations. All the observed 
facts in the experience with herds and flocks point in this 
direction." 

Brewer shows how the trotting-horse has been gradually 
evolved through the cumulative results of heredity. In 1818 
the lowest record for the mile was 3 minutes. During the next 
six years this record was reduced to 2:34, probably largely the 
result of training. But the limits that could be attained by this 
means had been practically reached, for during the next ten 
years the record was lowered only 2 \ seconds, and twenty-one 
years more elapsed before the record was reduced to 2 :3c By 
1858 a 2:30 class was established, but with only a half-dozen 
horses with that speed. Brewer says: "Now we began 'to have 
distinctly trotting blood, and heredity began to tell." By 
1868 the record had been lowered 5 seconds more, and there 
were fully 150 in the 2 :3o class. By 1888 there were 3,255 in the 
2 130 class, and the record was reduced 4 seconds more. Now 
we have a record below 2:04, and probably a hundred in the 
2:10 list, and a thousand in the 2:20 list. The evolution of the 
pacer during the last century from the 3-minute class to the 
2-minute class has been equally remarkable. 

Cope cites a large number of cases reported by eminent ob- 
servers of the transmission of mutilations. He cites such cases 
as the transmission of ophthalmia in a horse, the loss of an eye in 
fowls, a split pastern-joint in a horse, a cat with a deformed tail, 



NATURE AND NURTURE 207 

etc. Deformed fingers, a broken knee-pan, and other acciden- 
tally acquired characters are reported to have been transmitted 
through succeeding generations of human beings. 

Cope says 1 that not only are structural characteristics in- 
herited by offspring, "but the functionings of organs which 
depend on minute histological peculiarities are inherited. Such 
are points of mental and muscular idiosyncrasy; of weakness 
and strength of all or any of the viscera, and consequent tenden- 
cies to disease or vigor of special organs. Darwin has collected 
in his work, The Descent of Man, numerous instances of the 
inheritance of various tricks of muscular movements of the face, 
hands, and other parts of the body." 

Shall we not believe with Cope and Brewer that the gradual 
change in the texture of wool of sheep taken from one region to 
another, the modification of the hoofs of horses taken from low- 
lands to mountainous regions, the gradual acclimatization of 
plants taken from moist to desert regions or from higher to 
lower altitudes, or from tropical to temperate zones, are all 
examples of the gradual accumulations of tendencies or acquired 
characters which are transmitted, thus changing the entire 
nature of the breed or species ? 

Eimer states his views definitely, saying: 2 "It can, I believe, 
be proved as a fact that acquired characters are inherited. . . . 
Single cases of the inheritance of injuries only once incurred 
seem to me to be thoroughly authenticated." Rudimentary 
organs in his judgment are proof of the inheritance of modifi- 
cations produced by injuries. He maintains that: "All the 
results of cultivation which man successfully produces in plants 
and animals, and for thousands of years has produced, prove 
. . . most mcontestably the fact that acquired characters are 
hereditary." He further says: "That characters acquired 
through use or disuse are inherited, and must therefore aid in the 
formation of new species, can, I believe, be proved more easily 
than any other proposition I am maintaining. If I were to 
bring together all the facts which could be used as evidence on 

1 Loc. cit., p. 398. 2 Organic Evolution, pp. 13, 100, 154. 



208 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

this point, I should never come to the end of them, for I should 
have to refer to all the facts of comparative anatomy and 
physiology. But I intend to show in particular that use and 
disuse by themselves must lead to the formation of new perma- 
nent characters, without the aid of selection, for even this I hold 
to be a physiological necessity." 

In a very long chapter on "Acquired Characters," and a sub- 
sequent one on " Degeneration," Eimer sets forth at great length 
his belief in the transmission of acquired characters. He cites a 
great many examples of the transmission from parent to child 
of some injury or modification acquired during the lifetime of the 
parent. He does not regard these specific cases as necessary 
to prove his position, although they seem to be convincing, since 
the whole development of instincts, varieties and species, or in 
fact all gradual changes of structure and function within species, 
are wholesale illustrations of the same law. He argues properly 
that insanity, idiocy, mental degeneracy, the extinction of fami- 
lies through drunkenness and disease, are all specific evidences 
of cumulative effects conserved through heredity. 

According to Darwin, the families of drunkards become 
extinct in the fourth generation. Marce gives the following 
order of degeneration in such cases: First generation: Moral 
depravity, excessive indulgence in alcohol. Second generation: 
Drink mania, maniacal attacks, general paralysis. Third gen- 
eration: Hypochondria, melancholia, tsedium vitae, impulse to 
suicide. Fourth generation: Imbecility, idiocy, extinction of 
the family. 1 Spencer says very emphatically: "Either there 
has been inheritance of acquired characters or there has been 
no evolution." Dr. Cutter says 2 that: "Not only the natural 
constitution of the parents may be inherited, but their acquired 
habits of life, whether virtuous or vicious. . . . Even when the 
identical vice does not appear, there is a morbid organization and 
a tendency to some vice akin to it. Not only is the evil tendency 
transmitted, but what was the simple practice, the voluntarily 

1 Given by Eimer, op. cit., p. 200. 

2 Comprehensive Physiology, p. 224. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 209 

adopted and cherished vice, of the parent, becomes the passion, 
the overpowering impulse, of the child. A person is thus often 
handicapped for life by the mistakes and faults of his ancestors. 
. . . Every formation of body, internal and external, all intel- 
lectual endowments and aptitudes, and all moral qualities, are 
or may be transmissible from parent to child. If one generation 
is missed, the qualities may appear in the next generation 
(atavism). A guilty secret may thus reveal itself long after the 
active participators in it have passed from this life." 

W. T. Harris writes: 1 "The mole hunts earthworms and 
proceeds by minute steps of conceiving a purpose, and of 
realizing this purpose, until it produces an hereditary change in 
its physique. The disuse of organs causes their diminution in 
the individual in the course of its own life, and after several 
generations the effect becomes visible as an inheritance, as a 
diminution or utter extinction of eyesight." 

Darwin is frequently cited as one of the great opponents of 
the theory of the transmission of acquired characters. It is 
true that selection, natural and artificial, was the great principle 
which he invoked to explain the origin of species, but it is en- 
tirely erroneous to believe that he regarded that as the sole cause. 
He distinctly says: 2 "I am convinced that natural selection has 
been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of 
modification." Although Darwin did not stress the idea of the 
transmission of acquired characters, yet it seems clear that he 
recognized it and he undoubtedly collected the largest array of 
evidence ever gathered which supports this view. His discus- 
sions of the variation of plants and animals under domestication 
and other forms of changed environment, the effects of use and 
disuse, laws of variation, the origin of species, the origin and 
development of instincts, all point unequivocally in the same 
direction. A few quotations will be adduced to corroborate this 
interpretation of his views. In his section on the effects of habit 
and of the use or disuse of parts he writes: " Changed habits pro- 

1 Preface to Judd's Genetic Psychology for Teachers, p. 7. 

2 Origin of Species, p. 5. 



210 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

duce an inherited effect as in the period of the flowering of plants 
when transported from one climate to another. With animals 
the increased use or disuse of parts has a more marked influence; 
thus I find in the domestic duck that the bones of the wing weigh 
less and the bones of the leg more, in proportion to the whole 
skeleton, than do the same bones in the wild duck; and this 
change may be safely attributed to the domestic duck flying 
much less, and walking more, than its wild parents. . . . Not 
one of our domestic animals can be named which has not in some 
country drooping ears; and the view which has been suggested 
that the drooping is due to disuse of the muscles of the ear, from 
the animals being seldom much alarmed, seems probable." * 

In discussing the laws of variation he says: 2 "It is very 
difficult to decide how far changed conditions, such as of climate, 
food, etc., have acted in a definite manner. There is reason to 
believe that in the course of time the effects have been greater 
than can be proved by clear evidence." It is just this gradual 
accumulation which many now feel bold enough to consider 
as the great source of visible modifications. "From the facts 
alluded to in the first chapter, I think there can be no doubt 
that use in our domestic animals has strengthened and enlarged 
certain parts, and disuse diminished them; and that such 
modifications are inherited. . . . The evidence that accidental 
mutilations can be inherited is at present not decisive;, but the 
remarkable cases observed by Brown-Sequard in guinea pigs, 
of the inherited effects of operations, should make us cautious in 
denying this tendency. . . . The eyes of moles and of some bur- 
rowing rodents are rudimentary in size, and in some cases are 
quite covered by skin and fur. This state of the eyes is probably 
due to gradual reduction from disuse, but aided perhaps by 
natural selection. ... In some of the crabs the foot-stalk for 
the eyes remains, though the eye is gone; the stand for the tele- 
scope is there, though the telescope with its glasses has been lost. 
As it is difficult to imagine that eyes, though useless, could be in 
any way injurious to animals living in darkness, their loss may be 

1 Origin of Species, p. 10. 2 Ibid., p. 127. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 211 

attributed to disuse." His discussion of the origin of instincts 
corroborates the same theory. He says: 1 "If we suppose 
any habitual action to become inherited — and it can be shown 
that this does sometimes happen — then the resemblance between 
what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as 
not to be distinguished. ... As modifications of corporeal 
structure arise from, and are increased by, use or habit, and are 
diminished or lost by disuse, so I doubt not it has been with 
instincts." Especially good illustrations of instincts acquired 
by use or lost through disuse are those which have appeared 
or have been modified by the domestication of animals. Darwin 
devotes an entire section to cases of "inherited changes of habit 
in domesticated animals." 2 

The Fundamental Difference Between the Theories. — Un- 
doubtedly much of the difference between the Weismannians and 
the opponents of the theory is due to the difference in meaning 
of the term "acquired character." Brooks, in his Foundations 
of Zoology, says that he never uses the phrase "inheritance of 
acquired characters" except under protest. He says: "If any 
assert that the dog inherits anything which his ancestors did not 
acquire, their words seem meaningless; for, as we use words, 
everything which has not existed from the beginning must have 
been acquired — although one may admit this without admitting 
that the nature of the dog is, wholly or to any practical degree, 
the inherited effect of the environment of his ancestors." 

We should agree with the Weismannians that a sharp distinc- 
tion should be made between inborn changes, those which they 
insist are germinal variations, and those called bodily modifica- 
tions. Undoubtedly no modifications except germinal modifica- 
tions can be transmitted. But may not acquired bodily modifi- 
cations produce germinal modifications? In fact, it hardly 
seems thinkable that normal modifications of the germ can be 
produced in any other way than through the medium of the 
blood, i. e., the body. It seems unscientific to speak of germinal 
modifications occurring without cause. "Sports" and "chance 

1 Origin of Species, p. 243. 2 Ibid., p. 247. 



212 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

variations" should not be considered as scientific categories. 
A functional or dynamic relation rather than a mechanical sub- 
stance relation undoubtedly obtains between the germ and the 
developed individual. Then why is it not possible to have the 
bodily character exert a profound dynamic influence upon the 
germ-plasm without the intervention of gemmules, ids, or de- 
terminants as the bearers of heredity? The "arrival of the 
fittest" can then be explained on the assumption of dynamic 
forces which become sufficiently cumulative to cause the germ 
to function in new ways. It is, of course, recognized that the 
union of two germ-cells may produce a new individual differing 
from either, but this could not account for their producing 
modifications just like the particular acquired modifications of 
the bearer of either of the cells. 

Weismann may be correct, but his theories at least are not 
proven and rest upon purely imaginative interpretations without 
experimental evidence. Morgan says apropos of this point of 
v ew: "Weismann has piled up one hypothesis on another as 
though he could save the integrity of the theory of natural selec- 
tion by adding new speculative matter to it. The most un- 
fortunate feature is that the new speculation is skilfully removed 
from the field of verification, and invisible germs, whose sole 
functions are those which Weismann's imagination bestows on 
them, are brought forward as though they could supply the 
deficiencies of Darwin's theory. This is, indeed, the old 
method of the philosophizers of nature. . . . The worst feature 
of the situation is not so much that Weismann has advanced new 
hypotheses unsupported by experimental evidence, but that the 
speculation is of such a kind that it is, from its very nature, un- 
verifiable, and therefore useless." 1 

Thomson, though believing in Weismann's position, is cau- 
tious and says that "we do not know of any instance of the 
transmission of an acquired character." He further observes 
that "those who give an affirmative answer have not succeeded 
in proving their case; as for the other side, how can they prove 

1 T. H. Morgan, Evolution and Adaptation, 1903, p. 165. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 213 

a negative? Therefore, while we have no hesitation as to the 
verdict of ' non-proven ' to which the evidence at present available 
points, we do not expect a satisfactory issue until many years of 
experimental work have supervened." 1 He says that "The 
Lamarckian position is still stoutly maintained — usually in 
more or less modified form — by many prominent naturalists, 
especially in France and America." 2 

Delage says: "II n'est pas demon tre que les modifications 
acquises sous 1' influence des conditions de vie soient generale- 
ment hereditaires, mais il parait bien certain qu'elles le sont 
quelquefois. Cela depend sans doute de leur nature." Thom- 
son, who quotes the above, does not agree to it, but says: "This 
is the opinion of one of the acutest of living biologists." 3 Even 
Thomson, who is a believer in Weismannism, says: "It must 
be admitted, therefore, that it is quite erroneous to think of the 
germ-cells as if they led a charmed life, uninfluenced by any of 
the accidents and incidents in the daily life of the body which 
is their bearer. But no one believes this, Weismann least of all, 
for he finds the chief source of germinal variations in the stimuli 
exerted on the germ-plasm by the oscillating nutritive changes 
in the body." 4 

Importance of the Question. — The question as to the trans- 
missibility of acquired characters, says Thomson, is more than 
a purely academic one, and more than a technical problem for 
biologists. "Our decision in regard to it affects not only our 
whole theory of organic evolution, but even our every-day con- 
duct. The question should be of interest to the parent, the 
physician, the teacher, the moralist, and the social reformer — in 
short, to us all." 5 

Educational Bearings of Heredity. — Predispositions. — The 
facts of heredity properly set forth carry with them so clearly 
the educational bearings that it will not be necessary to dwell 
at great length upon this phase of the subject. A few con- 
clusions will, however, be suggested. 

^Heredity, p. 166. 2 Op. cit., p. 172. 3 Op. cit., p. 164. 

4 Op. cit., p. 203. 6 Op. cit., p. 165. 



214 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Physically and intellectually each individual has a predeter- 
mined norm toward which he tends to grow. Favorable environ- 
ment will develop these qualities to the fullest extent. If envi- 
ronmental circumstances are especially auspicious it is possible 
that natural tendencies may be stressed and hereditary endow- 
ments slightly augmented during the lifetime of the individual. 
But the individual is predestined to grow about so tall, so heavy, 
to have a given memory, a certain type of imagination, etc. 
Predestination in these matters is just as certain as in the case 
of blue or gray eyes, black or red hair, blonde or brunette skin, 
regular or crooked teeth, and dozens of other characteristics 
which every one would concede are unmodified or only slightly 
affected by environment. Crack oarsmen, base-ball and foot- 
ball stars, sprinters, pole-vaulters, singers, and artists are not 
created by any school. They are simply discovered, and some- 
times developed. Much the same is true of poets, orators, 
musicians, and mathematicians. 

Teachers frequently become weighed down with the impor- 
tance of their mission which they have misconstrued. They 
assume that their main function is to create rather than to de- 
velop. In view of this they often carry undue loads of responsi- 
bility concerning the outcome of their efforts, and also assume 
altogether too much credit for the success of pupils who win in 
after life. They say: "Senator So-and-So, Judge So-and-So, 
were my pupils." Colleges frequently use such material for 
advertising. But further than being a selective agency and 
stimulating the individuals to develop themselves to their maxi- 
mum capability, the institution does little in causing its students 
to become great. It may cause them to achieve greatness, but 
it does not give them greatness. In fact, were they not born 
potentially great they could never achieve greatness. 

Limits of Education. — "As illustrative of the inability of 
education or training to develop mental powers beyond the limit 
of hereditary endowment, it may be mentioned that children of 
inferior races often manifest a marvelous quickness of under- 
standing during the earlier stages of an European education, but 



'• NATURE AND NURTURE 215 

soon, and abruptly, come to a point beyond which their intellect- 
ual development cannot be carried. Thus the Hawaiians have 
an excellent memory and learn by heart with remarkable ease, 
but it appears impossible to develop their reasoning power. In 
New Zealand, the ten-year-old children of the natives are said 
to be more intelligent than the English children of the same age, 
but, with very rare exceptions, they are incapable of ever reach- 
ing the mental ability ultimately attained by the latter. On the 
other hand, the children of the Brahmins, sprung from a caste 
which has been highly cultured through very many generations, 
exhibit great intelligence and especially an acuteness in reason- 
ing, whereby they show themselves vastly superior to the other 
natives of India." * 

Similar observations have been frequently made regarding 
negro children. Up to the age of ten or eleven they appear even 
precocious. After that age the rate of progress decreases in a 
marked degree. Before that time they frequently outstrip the 
white children. After that time they become hopelessly behind 
in the race. The higher powers have not sufficiently well- 
developed hereditary tendencies to produce growth equal to 
that in the whites. 

History of Twins. — Sir Francis Galton in his very interesting 
study of twins draws several conclusions of much value in 
studying the relation between heredity and environment. He 
clearly shows that although twins are given the same food, the 
same physical surroundings, the same schooling, the same 
social and mental environment, and in every way treated as 
nearly alike as possible, they often develop as differently as if 
they were in no way related. They may differ in height, weight, 
personal appearance, social disposition, and mental character- 
istics. The differing initial prepotentialities are stronger than 
any food, environment, or training that could be given. This 
should not be wondered at, for may not two animals of different 
species consume absolutely the same kind and amount of food 
and yet develop along absolutely different lines ? These lines of 

1 MeKim, Heredity and Human Progress, p. 268. 



2i6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

evidence justify, in Galton's opinion, the following general 
statements: 

"We may, therefore, broadly conclude," says Galton, "that 
the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons 
of similar conditions of life are affected, that is capable of pro- 
ducing a marked effect on the character of adults, is illness or 
some accident which causes physical infirmity. . . . The impres- 
sion that all this leaves on the mind is one of some wonder 
whether nurture can do anything at all, beyond giving instruction 
and professional training. . . . There is no escape from the con- 
clusion that nature prevails enormously over nurture when the 
differences of nurture do not exceed what is commonly to be 
found among persons of the same rank of society and in the same 
country." * 

Implications of Weismannism. — According to the doctrine 
of Weismann, education of the individual will have no hered- 
itary effect upon his posterity. Nothing that the individual 
does or accomplishes during his life can affect the germ-plasm 
or consequently his offspring. Through the example of the 
parent the education of the offspring may be very much affected 
to be sure, but it is not a result of inheritance. The most disso- 
lute living would also be without prejudicial hereditary effects 
upon children born after such living. In explaining the conse- 
quences of the theory, Conn says: 2 "Whatever be the life that 
the parents lead, whether of the most ennobling or the most 
debasing character, this will not modify the characters which the 
offspring would receive. . . . Imagine two individuals with the 
same congenital characters, and suppose that one is placed in 
circumstances which lead him to the lowest stages of dissipation, 
while the other is surrounded by conditions which lead him to 
live a most upright, moral life; imagine that each has a son who 
is separated at once from his parent and brought up under 
identical conditions; it would follow that each of the boys 
would show the same inherited characters. The profligate life 

1 "History of Twins," in Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 235, 240, 241. 

2 The Method of Evolution, p. 209. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 217 

of the one parent and the upright life of the other would not 
count in inheritance. . . . From such considerations it would 
follow that the only control that a man has over the inheritance 
of his children is in selecting his wife." 

Importance of Selection. — On the other hand, a great responsi- 
bility is placed upon each individual to aid natural selection in 
allowing only the best qualities of the race to be transmitted. 
Even if Weismannian theories be correct, the problem of the 
advance of civilization is not hopeless. If acquired modifica- 
tions are transmitted, the results are the more controllable and 
certain. It is certain that education should so enlighten each 
generation that it would limit the propagation of the species 
to those only who possess desirable physical and mental qualities. 
Education should aid in the determination of the ideals of life 
to be sought, and the means of best attaining these. The social 
heredity transmitted from generation to generation should thus 
become richer and nobler. 

There is certainly great need of wise measures to prevent the 
perpetuation and multiplication of many undesirable elements of 
society. Those with hereditary disposition to loathsome disease, 
the insane, the hopelessly defective, and the habitual criminal, 
should not only be effectively isolated from society, but they 
should be prevented from marrying and encumbering the earth 
with their kind. They are a perpetual menace to society and an 
absolute means of preventing the elevation of the general plane 
of society. Their presence constitutes an effective check upon 
physical, mental, and moral progress. This is in part because 
the expense entailed in maintaining such a class prevents the 
rearing of others who would be progressive factors. Then their 
presence contaminates the morals of the children of the righteous. 
They are to be feared as a pestilence. They are gangrenous 
members which should be excised from the rest of the body 
social with the utmost promptitude. 

Just what means should be adopted to aid in such a selective 
process is a question. It is not second in importance to any 
other. Various means have been suggested at different times 



218 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and a few have been tried. The Spartans afford an example of 
the most thoroughgoing attempt. The new-born babe was 
examined by a state official appointed for the purpose. All 
weaklings and defectives were at once put to death, we are told. 
In just what manner is a matter of dispute. Vigorous and 
physically perfect children were permitted to live, and at once 
adopted by the state. Henceforth to full maturity the physical 
development of the child was a matter of supreme concern. 
Physical exercise constituted the most important part of the 
education of both boys and girls. Marriage was compulsory 
and under supervision of the state. The women of Sparta had 
but one recognized function, that of furnishing physically 
perfect citizens for the service of the state. The type of physi- 
cal perfection attained has nowhere else been equalled. Moral 
and intellectual greatness were neglected and resulted in the 
final overthrow of Sparta by a less hardy, but more intel- 
lectual people. The downfall was not a consequence of phys- 
ical vigor, but because of the absence of that which is still 
higher. 

In many States the prohibition of the marriage of imbeciles 
and of idiots has been considered. Laws have been projected 
in various places to require an educational test for marriage. 
Why are not certain educational qualifications as sensible pre- 
requisites for matrimony as for suffrage? Connecticut re- 
cently passed a law providing that no man or woman who is 
known to be epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded shall marry. 
The direful consequences of allowing epileptics and the feeble- 
minded to become parents are just beginning to be appreciated. 1 
McKim tells us 2 that "Echeverria, after ten years' careful 
research into the character of the offspring of epileptics . . . 
found that 62 male and 74 female epileptics produced 553 
children. Of these latter, 22 were still-born; 195 died during 
infancy from spasms; 78 lived as epileptics; 18 lived as idiots; 

1 There is a very definite movement in many States to pass laws restricting the 
marriage of the above classes. Other laws have been adopted in some States. 
See Fisher, Report on National Vitality, 1909, p. 51. 

2 Heredity and Human Progress, p. 145. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 219 

39 lived as paralytics; 45 were hysterical; 6 had chorea; 11 
were insane; 7 had strabismus; 27 died young from other 
causes than nervous diseases. Thus out of the 553 children, 
448 died early or were gravely afflicted, while 105, or less than 
one-quarter of the whole number, were healthy." 

The principal of the New York Institute for the Deaf and 
Dumb wrote that resulting from 833 marriages where both 
parents were deaf, out of 3,942 children born, 1,134 were defec- 
tives, 308 of them being idiots, 145 deaf and dumb, 98 deformed, 
60 epileptics, 85 blind, 38 insane, 300 scrofulous, 883 died young. 
Dr. S. G. Howe, in studying the causes of idiocy in Massachu- 
setts, found 114 idiotic persons whose parents were known to be 
habitual drunkards, 419 came from scrofulous families, 211 had 
some near relatives either insane or idiotic, 49 had one near 
relative idiotic, 50 had parents one or both of whom were 
idiots or insane. 

David Starr Jordan, who is a believer in Weismannism, says 
that " So far as science knows, education and training play no 
part in heredity. 1 The change in the blood which is the essence 
of race progress, as distinguished from progress in civilization, 
finds its cause in selection only. . . . Evil influences may kill 
the individual, but they cannot tarnish the stream of heredity. 
The child of each generation is free-born so far as heredity goes, 
and the sins of the fathers are not visited upon him." He says 
further that by proper selective breeding it is possible to produce 
wonders. "Almost anything may be accomplished with time 
and patience." He maintains that nations have died out or 
become degenerate simply because they have sent all their best 
blood to war. "Greece died because the men who made her 
glory had all passed away and left none of their kind." The 
wars of France explain the French " Man with the Hoe." " Spain 
died of empire centuries ago. She has never crossed our path. 
It was only her ghost which walked at Manila and Santiago." 2 

1 I cannot subscribe to the idea that education and training play no part 
in heredity, but I do recognize the importance of selection. 

2 The Blood of the Nation. See also his recent book, The Human Harvest. 



220 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Sir Francis Galton has made observations in the same direc- 
tion. He shows how the Spanish nation has been drained of its 
best blood through persecutions for one reason or another. 
Every year between 1471 and 1781 an average of 1,000 persons 
condemned for free thinking were executed. These were the 
strongest intellects. During those three centuries, 32,000 were 
burnt and 117,000 burnt in effigy (and most of these died in 
prison). During the same period, 291,000 were condemned to 
imprisonment for similar offences. 

During the Middle Ages celibacy was thought by thousands 
of the choicest spirits to be an absolute condition of righteous- 
ness, with the consequence that many of the best men of the time 
left no posterity. Thus the rudest portion of the community 
were left to be the parents of succeeding generations. Thus 
were practised, says Galton, "the arts which breeders would 
use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. 
No wonder that club law prevailed for centuries over Europe; 
the wonder rather is that enough good remained in the veins of 
Europeans to enable their race to rise to its present very moderate 
level of natural morality." 1 He goes so far as to say that the 
Dark Ages in Europe were largely due to the disastrous results 
of celibacy. He also points out that the English universities en- 
couraged celibacy by offering their fellowships and other honors 
to their most talented sons on one condition, namely, that they 
should not marry. As those positions have a life tenure, include 
free board, lodging, a reasonable income, good society, and op- 
portunity for scholastic pursuits, they are eagerly accepted. 
Through this a great national loss is entailed. One of the 
seeming penalties of higher education and civilization is that of 
bequeathing the world to the children of the peasantry and of 
the slums. With higher standards of life fewer marriages take 
place and fewer children are born into each family. 

Galton on Heredity and Limits of Education. — To prove that 
heredity and not training is responsible for great mental ability, 
Galton 2 states that the majority of those who gained the greatest 

1 Hereditary Genius^ p. 344. 2 Ibid, p. 15. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 221 

mathematical prizes at Cambridge were boys who had received 
practically no training before going to Cambridge. They com- 
peted with boys from the " Great Public Schools" who had been 
coached all their lives to the limit of their capacities. But few 
of the latter class ever became "senior wranglers," i. e., won 
the highest place in the competitive examinations. Galton 
claims that children born of exceptionally gifted parents 
stand "an enormously greater chance of turning out to be 
gifted in a high degree" than children born of mediocre 
parents. 

Many of the greatest students of juvenile criminals are con- 
vinced that heredity is responsible for the criminality of that 
portion of juvenile offenders who cannot be reformed. Of the 
juvenile prison population a large percentage are descendants 
of such feeble stock that they have lost their parents early in 
life. In these extreme cases no amount of education and no 
quality of environment would have been adequate to redeem 
them to society. Maudsley said on this point: 1 "It is an 
indisputable though extreme fact that certain human beings are 
born with such a native deficiency of mind that all the training 
and education in the world will not raise them to the height of 
brutes; and I believe it to be not less true that, in consequence of 
evil ancestral influences, individuals are born with such a flaw or 
warp of nature that all the care in the world will not prevent them 
from being vicious or criminal or becoming insane. Education, 
it is true, may do much; . . . but we cannot forget that the 
foundations on which the acquisitions of education must rest 
are not acquired, but inherited." 

Galton does not believe that education can do much for the 
genius, by which term he means merely the eminently gifted. In 
fact, he does not believe that education can very materially 
change the nature of any individual. He says that all types 
"breed true" to their kind, and consequently one's ancestry 
predestines one to a given sphere of existence. Individual 
equality is unthinkable and should not be taught. He says: 

1 Body and Mind t p. 68. 



222 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

"I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, 
and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to 
be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the 
sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and 
man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is 
in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of 
natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, 
the university, and of professional careers, are a chain of proof 
to the contrary. I acknowledge freely the great power of educa- 
tion and social influences in developing the active powers of the 
mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use in developing the 
muscles of a blacksmith's arm, and no further. Let the black- 
smith labor as he will, he will find there are certain feats beyond 
his power that are well within the strength of a man of hercu- 
lean make, even though the latter may have led a sedentary 
life." 

Every man, says, Galton, finds his natural level. He com- 
petes with many, distances some, and is distanced by others. 
He may try in various lines but with quite similar results. Bar- 
ring a certain amount of advantage coming from opportunity 
and encouragement and similar disadvantages due to a lack 
of opportunity, Galton's conclusions are undoubtedly correct. 
Difficulties and discouragement serve to repress mediocre indi- 
viduals more than the great. This must include moral' great- 
ness. On the other hand, encouragement and opportunity 
mean little to the idiot or weak-minded. Hence the great middle 
class are the most benefited by educational opportunities. He 
says: "If a man is gifted with vast intellectual ability, eagerness 
to work and power of working, I cannot comprehend how such 
a man should be repressed. The world is always tormented 
with difficulties waiting to be solved — struggling with ideas and 
feelings, to which it can give no adequate expression. If, then, 
there exists a man capable of solving those difficulties, or of 
giving a voice to those pent-up feelings, he is sure to be welcomed 
with universal acclamation. We may almost say that he has 
only to put his pen to paper and the thing is done. I am here 



NATURE AND NURTURE 223 

speaking of the very first-class men — prodigies — one in a million, 
or one in ten millions." * 

He remarks further: 2 "I feel convinced that no man can 
achieve a very high reputation without being gifted with very 
high abilities." He even maintains that those who possess 
great capacity will find opportunity to manifest it, even though 
early training be neglected. 

Testimony from Neurology. — "In the association areas our 
memory records of past experiences and their connections are 
laid down in some, as yet unknown, material change in the net- 
work of nerve cells and fibres. Here, as elsewhere in the nervous 
system, it may be supposed that the efficiency of the nervous 
machinery is conditioned partly by the completeness and char- 
acter of training, but largely also by the inborn character of the 
machinery itself. The very marked differences among intelli- 
gent and cultivated persons — for instance, in the matter of mu- 
sical memory and the power of appreciating and reproducing 
musical harmonies — cannot be attributed to differences in train- 
ing alone. The gifted person in this respect is one who is born 
with a certain portion of his brain more highly organized than 
that of most of his fellow-men. This general conception that 
the special capacities of talented individuals rest chiefly upon 
inborn differences in structure or organization of the brain may 
be regarded as one outcome of the modern doctrine of localization 
of functions in this organ. In the beginning of the nineteenth 
century it seems to have been the general view that those who 
had a high degree of mental capacity might direct their activity 
with equal success in any direction according to the training 
received. A man who could walk fifty miles to the north, it was 
said, could just as easily walk fifty miles to the south, and a man 
whose training made him an eminent mathematician might, 
with different training, have made an equally eminent soldier 
or statesman. In our day, however, with our ideas of the 
organization of the brain cortex, and our knowledge that 
different parts of this cortex give different reactions in con- 

1 Hereditary Genius, p. 35. 2 Ibid., p. 43. 



224 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

sciousness, it seems to follow that special talents are due to 
differences in organization of special parts of the cortex." l 

Donaldson says, 2 from a study of the nervous system and its 
development, that "The general relations of formal education 
to the growing process are fairly evident, the function of it is 
to round out the original framework of the central system, in 
accordance with the natural provisions there present. Without 
question there is something very fatalistic in this. No amount 
of education will cause enlargement or organization where the 
rough materials, the cells, are wanting; and on the other hand, 
where these materials are present, they will, in some degree, 
become evident, whether purposely educated or not." 

Donaldson further writes: 3 "Education must fail to produce 
any fundamental changes in the nervous organization, but to 
some extent it can strengthen formed structures by exercise, 
and in part waken into activity the unorganized remnant of the 
dormant cells. No amount of cultivation will give good growth 
where the nerve cells are few and ill-nourished, but careful 
culture can do much where there are those with strong inherent 
impulses toward development. On neurological grounds, there- 
fore, nurture is to be considered of much less importance than 
nature, and in that sense the capacities that we most admire in 
persons worthy of remark are certainly inborn rather than 
made." 

Thorndike writes: 4 "The importance to educational theory 
of a recognition of the fact of original nature and of exact know- 
ledge of its relative share in determining life's progress is ob- 
vious. It is wasteful to attempt to create and folly to pretend 
to create capacities and interests which are assumed or denied 
to an individual before he is born. The environment acts for 
the most part not as a creative force, but as a stimulating and 
selective force. We can so arrange the circumstances of nurture 
as to reduce many undesirable activities by giving them little 

1 W. H. Howell, Text-Book of Physiology, pp. 220-221. 

2 Growth of the Brain, p. 355. 3 Op. cit., p. 343. 
4 Educational Psychology, p. 44. 



NATURE AND NURTURE 225 

occasion for appearance, and to increase the desirable ones by 
insuring them an adequate stimulus. We can, by the results we 
artificially attach to wisdom, energy, or sympathy, select them for 
continuance in individual lives. But the results of our endeavors 
will forever be limited as a whole by the slow progress of change 
in the original nature of the race, and in different individuals by 
inborn talents and defects. . . . The one thing that educational 
theorists of to-day seem to place as the foremost duty of the 
schools — the development of powers and capacities — is the one 
thing that the schools or any other educational forces can do 
least." 

Physical, Mental, and Moral Correlations. — A study of heredity 
emphasizes the correlation between mind and body and between 
intellectual and moral life. In the great majority of cases 
criminality is an accompaniment, possibly a consequence, of 
bodily defect. Dr. MacMillan of the Child Study Department 
of the Chicago schools is confident that bodily defects coexist 
with mental defects even when it is impossible to detect them by 
ordinary means. Morrison claims that among juvenile offend- 
ers, a high percentage are developed feebly on the physical side. 
"The physical basis of mental life is in a worse condition 
amongst juvenile offenders as a body than amongst the ordinary 
population." 

Social Heredity and Morality. — Moral qualities are much less 
determined by biological heredity than are physical and mental. 
They are much more coefficients of environment and social 
heredity. Biological heredity is largely determinative of 
physical size and strength and mental power, while environment 
largely determines what use will be made of them. I have 
emphasized the correlation between physical development and 
criminality, but I have also pointed out the fact that about eighty 
per cent, of all juvenile offenders are reformable. Every one 
knows of the Apollos in physical development who are the basest 
kind of scoundrels and of persons with puny, undeveloped, 
diseased bodies coupled with beautiful characters. Of course 
no one can ever develop the highest type of positive moral char- 



226 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

acter without possessing abundant mental power and vigor. 
Mediocre intellectuality can never be coupled with the highest 
morality. There must be vigor of brain to have vigor of mind, 
and there must be vigor of mind to have moral vigor. But I 
cannot subscribe to the theories of Lombroso and his school of 
criminologists who maintain that facial and other external 
bodily features are an absolute index to mental and moral 
qualities. 

The use to which we devote our mental and physical powers 
is largely a moral question. Most people know sufficiently well 
what they ought to do and what they ought to avoid. Though 
great ignorance still prevails, yet the besetting sins of the age are 
those due to a lack of moral fibre. Moral qualities are the most 
susceptible of modification; moral interests give direction to all 
we do. Hence, the most important phase of education is moral 
education. How apt we are to concentrate all our attention 
and all our energies upon a few facts of arithmetic and geography 
and entirely neglect the implantation of great moral ideals! 

Individuality and Education. — The foregoing discussion must 
not be construed as an argument against education. It is a 
strong plea for the wisest education possible. An analysis of 
education from the stand-point of heredity discloses its possibili- 
ties as well as its limitations. No two children possess abilities 
equal in kind or degree. It is a false doctrine of educatioh which 
assumes that they do. The better recognition of individual 
capacities and differences is one of the most pressing demands 
of education. Children have been treated in masses too long. 
The education must be made to fit the child and not the child 
the educational system. A study of the family history and 
hereditary tendencies will assist greatly in discovering capacities 
and in determining the best means and methods of education for 
individual cases. 

In arguing as above one is quite sure to meet incredulous 
persons who are certain to mention stories of great men and 
women who are said to have sprung into prominence from the 
weakest, most worthless, and most profligate ancestry. Pin such 



NATURE AND NURTURE 227 

a person down and he will fail to prove a single case of the sort. 
True, many of the world's illustrious have had humble parent- 
age and have sprung from apparent obscurity. But a study of 
family history will always reveal intellectual greatness some- 
where in the line of descent — and not very remote. Holmes 
well "says that it takes three generations to make a gentleman, 
and it takes many more than three times three to make an intel- 
lectual giant. Many of the giant intellects of the world have not 
been illustrious. They may have lived in poverty and obscurity, 
unstimulated by any great cause which enlisted their enthusiasm 
and brought to light their greatness. 

Obscurity must not be confused with inferiority. But for 
chance circumstances many of the most illustrious names of 
history would have been unknown. With different environment 
at the opportune time, thousands of obscure names might have 
been emblazoned on the pages of history. Remember the poet's 
expression : 

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear, 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 

And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

Sometimes there is an alternation of generations, and qualities 
which make for intellectual greatness seem to lie dormant, and 
again intermarriages change the whole current of growth. It is 
possible for intellectual cultivation to be pursued so continuously 
and so tensely that physical vitality is undermined. Nature 
then demands a rotation in order to recuperate the depleted 
treasury. There is grave danger that modern civilizations are 
too exclusively intellectual at the expense of physical vigor. 
With the sudden abandonment of manual labor and a de- 
pendence upon wits, it is very probable that intellectual develop- 
ment is proceeding at a pace which cannot be supported by 
the degenerating bodies. Evidence is easy to mass from the 
facts that lawyers, doctors, ministers, teachers, kings of finance, 
and others who live by brain alone do not leave enough children 
to keep up the average of population, and these children with 



22 8 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

hypersensitized devitalized bodies. The tillers of the soil, the 
street laborers, and the dwellers in the slums, who survive by 
sheer muscular force, are the ones who are peopling the earth, 
and their children must as certainly possess it. 

These are not arguments against intellectual education, but 
rather for a proper balance between mental and physical culture. 
A revival of the Greek ideal of harmony between the two, with 
our superior knowledge of the means of attaining the two, 
would speedily put mankind ahead so far that future generations 
would regard the present as exceedingly primitive. 

Discovery and Ministration. — Though education cannot 
greatly modify capacity, it can discover powers; it can minister 
to them; it can develop to their utmost those that are potential. 
In these respects our educational methods have been wofully at 
fault. By insisting that the business of education is to create 
power, great possibilities have been neglected. Discovery, 
stimulation, ministration, and development offer unlimited fields 
of opportunity for work in education. It is seldom that an indi- 
vidual has developed in any direction to his greatest capacity. 
It is seldom that one has been studied by his guardians — parents 
and teachers — so that they know his possibilities and his limita- 
tions. Still less frequently has the study been of such a char- 
acter as to become a means of self-revelation to the individual. 
Too often the emphasis in his education has been placed on the 
attempt to "round out" in harmony with some misconceived 
ideal. In the " rounding-out process" little progress has been 
made and meanwhile hidden talents have remained undis- 
covered, allowed to atrophy and decay, or even worse, to be 
ruthlessly snubbed or uprooted. 

What gardeners would set up an artificial ideal of "all-round- 
ness" in horticulture and try to make all plants grow of the same 
height, the same thickness, the same greenness, the same juici- 
ness, the same flavor, or the same odor ? No, we must have trees 
and shrubs and vines; creepers and climbers; oaks and squashes; 
apples and thistles. And even among apples we must have the 
crabapples, the Baldwins, the Duchesses, and the Tallman 



NATURE AND NURTURE 229 

Sweets. Similarly among men, we must have the black, the 
yellow, the copper, and the white; blonde and brunette; blue- 
eyed and black; the tall and slim, and the short and thick-set; the 
musical, the mathematical, and the artistic; the choleric and the 
phlegmatic; the farmer, the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, 
the laborer, and the inventor; the soldier and the statesman; and 
thousands of others, each rilling his niche and necessary to the 
welfare, happiness, and progress of all the others. 

Heredity and Race Education. — To all who have a broad 
educational vision and who are concerned for the welfare of the 
race as well as for the individual, the study of heredity should 
extend much hope. Education becomes a race question. He- 
redity is the great conservator of all life forces. Every effect 
produced in the individual is preserved and effects are cumula- 
tive. To be sure, this is not encouraging to the one who wastes 
his substance in riotous living. But we sin against such a 
one in giving him comfort and assurances of a final happy 
outcome, regardless of his life. He will rise up and call us 
blessed if we sternly impress upon him the inexorableness of 
nature's laws. He must be shown that he cannot overdraw his 
bank account ad libitum. The day of reckoning is a certainty, 
and nature is an errorless book-keeper. She cannot be cheated. 
The account is absolutely correct. With the same unerring 
accuracy nature keeps the account of the righteous man. What 
he saves is not only kept inviolate, but it is sure to pay compound 
interest in the form of health, strength, and character. 

Similarly with the race the question of progress or retrogression 
is simply figured out by that arch banker, nature. If all indi- 
viduals of the race could only wisely keep their balance on the 
right side of the ledger, what tremendous reserves and dividends 
we should soon have to be used for new enterprises and con- 
quests! We know this to be true in developing plants and 
animals, but how prodigal in the case of mankind! Galton 
says: "I argue that, as a new race can be raised to so great a 
degree of purity that it will maintain itself, with moderate care 
in preventing the more faulty members of the flock from breed- 



230 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ing, so a race of gifted men might be obtained under exactly 
similar conditions." For long years Galton has pondered this 
great question. As a result of his thinking a new science is 
being discovered — that of eugenics. The University of London 
has established the "Francis Galton Laboratory for National 
Eugenics." From that laboratory there will soon be published 
a Treasury of Human Inheritance, which will contain family 
histories illustrating various types of heredity, such as, intellect- 
ual ability, tuberculous stocks, epileptic tendencies, physical 
depravity, etc. 1 

1 For literature on eugenics consult: Galton, "Eugenics, Its Definition, 
Scope, and Aim," Am. Jour, of Soc, 10: 1-6, 1904; Karl Pearson, The Scope 
and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics, Oxford Uni- 
versity Press; Pearson, A First Study of the Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, 
Delau & Co., 1907; Fisher, "Report on National Vitality," Bulletin 30 of the 
Committee of One Hundred on National Health, Government Printing Office, 
Washington, 1909; Saleeby, "The Psychology of Parenthood," Eugenics Review, 
April, 1909; Bateson, W., The Methods and Scope of Eugenics, Cambridge 
University Press, 1908; Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture, 1909. 



CHAPTER X 
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 

This is a subject which has not received adequate considera- 
tion in pedagogics. Some account has been taken of it in recent 
medical literature, but even there the importance attached to it 
has been slight compared with its merits. We are still too much 
under the domination of drugs and nostrums. In innumerable 
cases where drugs have brought relief, the cures in reality have 
been brought about by mental states. The only difference be- 
tween such cures and those effected by drugless therapeutics 
is that with the majority of people the drugs are a necessary 
means in producing the desired mental beliefs. 1 

Influence of Mind Over Body. — If we reflect a little we shall 
realize that the mind exerts a most powerful influence over 
bodily states. We know that grief causes the face to become 
pallid, while joy produces heightened color. Love, shame, and 
anger bring blushes to the cheek. Grief and sorrow stimulate 
the lachrymal glands to action. The same emotional states 
produce retarded circulation, impaired digestion, and the entire 
body often suffers in efficiency. Joy and happiness, on the 
other hand, increase the heart action, the blood goes bounding 
on its way; respiration is deeper, the digestive organs are toned 
up and physical vigor is manifested in every bodily action. 

The sight of food often causes the mouth to water. The 
thought of a disgusting sight may produce nausea and vomiting. 
A French physician, Dr. Durand, reported that he made experi- 

1 This chapter is not an endorsement of any so-called Christian Science or 
faith cures, although each of those makes use of the fundamental principles for 
which I shall contend. When one goes so far as to maintain that all disease is 
imaginary, that no disease is real, or that drugs cannot assist nature, or that 
thinking can replace a lost limb or reset a broken bone, the position becomes 
not only unscientific and unphilosophical, but absurd. 

231 



232 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ments upon one hundred hospital patients by giving them 
drinks of sugared water and then pretending "to have made a 
mistake in inadvertently giving them an emetic, instead of 
syrup of gum. The result may easily be anticipated by those 
who can estimate the influence of the imagination. No fewer 
than eighty — four-fifths — were immediately sick. How many 
of the rest suffered from nausea is not stated." * 

The salivary glands are profoundly affected by mental states, 
especially emotions. Every school-boy who has gone to the plat- 
form to declaim and who has felt any degree of stage fright, 
knows of the dryness of the mouth that in turn becomes a source 
of difficulty and embarrassment. The story of the ancient Hin- 
doo method of discovery of thieves among suspected servants 
in a family has become a classic. Each offender was required to 
chew a quantity of rice for a few minutes. The one who had the 
driest mouthful was deemed the offender. The gastric fluid 
is so much affected by fear that its secretion may be entirely sus- 
pended. This has been noted among animals as well as in the case 
of man. Good cheer probably promotes the flow of the gas- 
tric juice, for the digestion is certainly aided by cheerful emotions. 

Fear has a very great influence over the heart. We have the 
classic example of this in the story of the prisoner condemned to 
death by bleeding. He was placed in a chair, blindfolded, the 
back of a knife-blade drawn across the wrist and a little tepid 
water made to trickle over the wrist. A few tremors ensued 
and then he became quiet. The bandage was removed and the 
bystanders beheld a staring corpse. Fear had stopped all 
cardiac action. 

Every-day experience demonstrates that actions of the body 
except those which are reflex and automatic are under control 
of the mind. In the discussion of volitions an attempt will be 
made to show that even many reflexes may have a mental origin. 
Anatomy shows that the stimuli from the outside world acting 
upon the senses in some way induce sensations, perceptions, 
feelings, and other mental states. In turn the different nerve 

1 Hack Tuke, Influence of the Mind upon the Body, p. 1 26. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 233 

currents which have excited mental changes are succeeded by 
efferent currents from the brain and other central ganglia which 
excite muscular action. Pathology has demonstrated that men- 
tal diseases are frequently due to brain diseases. Post-mortem 
examinations even show that frequently particular brain lesions 
are correlated with particular mental diseases. Any direct 
disturbance of the brain by means of vivisection or through 
accident usually produces mental aberration of some kind. 
Excision of different parts shows corresponding characteristic 
mental changes, as in the case of the removal of the cerebrum 
or the cerebellum of frogs and pigeons. Physical exercise in 
moderation promotes mental activity, a good supply of oxygen 
is the best mental tonic, while excessive physical exercise pro- 
ducing fatigue has a depressing mental effect. The effects of 
various drugs, such as opiates, stimulants, and narcotics, are well 
known. Thousands are yearly made mental wrecks by dosing 
their bodies with opium, chloral, or alcoholic stimulants. The 
cigarette fiend among our schoolboys is not only dwarfed in body, 
but his mind suffers even a worse fate. Some sicknesses, such as 
fevers and neurasthenia, cause a great variety of mental affec- 
tions. Blows received on the head or other parts of the body 
frequently cause unconsciousness. Bodily death means cessa- 
tion of mental activities. Psychologists have demonstrated that 
when imagining any thing precisely the same centres are in- 
nervated as when perceiving the same thing. Crook the finger 
and think hard of pulling the trigger of a pistol and fatigue will 
ensue as if the action had really been performed. Imagined 
activity in dreams is often more fatiguing than the reality in 
waking hours. Excessive day-dreaming is as exhausting as 
genuine work. The imagined states in certain pathological 
processes are especially debilitating. It is said that medical 
students studying the heart and directing their thoughts to it 
frequently suffer from its disturbed action. The eminent 
surgeon, John Hunter, is quoted by Tuke as saying: "I am 
confident that I can fix my attention to any part until I have a 
sensation in that part." Suppose a person is told that there is 



234 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

an ant or a big worm crawling upon the back of his neck. If 
the statement is believed, in many cases the ant or worm will be 
felt, though not there. The writer once suggested to a popular 
audience that they think intently that ants were on their necks. 
So vividly did one woman experience the sensation suggested 
that she went into hysterics. 

So decidedly do vivid imaginations of a given state affect some 
persons that they often sympathetically suffer precisely as others 
whose sufferings they witness. Personally I have suffered 
acutely from a given pain when witnessing others in agony from 
the same. Tuke cites the following case related by Quain at 
the Westminster Medical Society: "A gentleman who had 
constantly witnessed the sufferings of a friend afflicted with 
stricture of the oesophagus, had so great an impression made on 
his nervous system, that after some time he experienced a similar 
difficulty of swallowing, and ultimately died of the spasmodic 
impediment produced by merely thinking of another's pain." 1 

Fear exerts a profound influence upon all the organs of the 
body, causing the knees to shake, the hand to tremble as with 
palsy, the tongue to cleave to the roof of the mouth, the lips to 
move as in pantomime, the eyes to stare as if starting from their 
sockets, the face to blanch and its muscles to twitch, the heart to 
thump, to flutter, or to cease action. It may even produce 
complete syncope. 

Anger affects the body so decidedly that often control is 
completely lost. Heart failure is a frequent effect of uncon- 
trollable anger. The eminent surgeon John Hunter was a 
constant sufferer from the effects of emotional excitement. In 
relating an affecting story his articulation was always much 
disturbed. He used to say: "My life is at the mercy of any 
scoundrel who chooses to put me in a passion." His words 
proved prophetic, for when arguing before a hospital board for a 
certain measure he made some remarks which were contradicted 
by a colleague: "Hunter immediately ceased speaking, retired 
from the table, and struggling to suppress the tumult of his 

'Tuke, Op. cit., p. 126. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 235 

passion, hurried into an adjoining room, which he had scarcely 
reached, when with a deep groan, he fell lifeless." * 

Joy may affect the heart as seriously as fright or grief. History 
records that the old doorkeeper of Congress died on hearing the 
joyful news of the surrender of Cornwallis. Tuke even remarks 
that: "If we take two persons and subject one to the operation 
of a depressing, the other to that of an exciting emotion, the 
former may remain calm and the latter faint away. Yet, in 
many instances, such is the actual result. Lord Eglinton in- 
formed John Hunter that when two soldiers were condemned 
to be shot, but one was to receive a pardon, the event being 
decided by their throwing dice, the one who proved successful — 
thus procuring a reprieve — generally fainted, while the one to be 
shot remained calm." 

A veterinary surgeon was about to be operated upon. He 
was not a nervous person and went to the operating-room 
calmly and without apparent fear, but at the moment of be- 
ginning the operation he turned pale, fainted, and in ten minutes 
was dead. The result was plainly due to shock from the appre- 
hension concerning the result. 2 Cases are recorded in which the 
patient faints on seeing the surgeon. Undoubtedly thousands 
of persons have died of fright as a result of practical jokes. 
The newspapers and medical journals abound in well-authenti- 
cated cases. Tuke relates the case of a man condemned to die 
by the headsman's axe. His head was placed upon the block 
and the executioner prepared to strike the fateful blow. A 
tumult outside caused a cessation; a reprieve had come. They 
turned to communicate the joyful news to the doomed man. 
Alas ! his spirit had flown. Fright had become his executioner. 

It is popularly believed that fright blanches the hair. Byron 
wrote of the Prisoner of Chillon: 

"His hair was white but not with years, 
Nor grew it white in a single night, 
As men's have grown from sudden fears." 

1 Tuke, loc. cit., p. 270. 

2 The Medical Times and Gazette, July 28^ 1866. 



236 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

From another source: 

"For deadly fear can Time outgo, 
And blanch at once the hair." 

No doubt the popular belief finds support in pathological 
records. Montesquieu tells us that his own hair became gray 
in a single night on receiving distressing news concerning his 
son. Marie Antoinette is said to have become gray in her last 
agony. So great an effect is possible that continued anxiety of 
mind may cause the hair to fall. 

Undoubtedly many of the diseases of human life are purely 
imaginary. Quacks, charlatans, and vendors of patent medi- 
cines thrive from the traffic in cure-all medicines advertised 
conspicuously before a gullible public. Unsophisticated persons 
and those with disordered imaginations read the descriptions of 
symptoms and forthwith begin to picture those states in them- 
selves. The nostrums, mainly alcoholic preservatives, fre- 
quently effect "cures" through the help of the imagination. 
Such persons remain improved or cured until a new set of symp- 
toms is suggested to them, when they resort again to the six 
bottles for five dollars or the hundred doses for a dollar. Not 
seldom do the frequent dosings induce real diseases. 

It is especially true that when coupled with grief imaginary 
diseases make serious inroads upon the health. Mariy people 
nurse their griefs and other ailments until their constitutions are 
undermined. I believe that many cases of insanity are directly 
traceable to excessive nursing of grief. Every one is in a large 
measure responsible for his sanity or insanity of mind. An 
effort to keep the mind filled with wholesome, uplifting thoughts 
brings its own reward no less definite than when morbid ideas 
are harbored. 

Munsterberg Quoted. — "That mind and body come in con- 
tact," says Munsterberg, "is a conviction which goes with every 
single sense-perception. I see and hear because light and sound 
stimulate my sense-organs, and the sense-organs stimulate my 
brain. ... In the same way it seems a matter of course that 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 237 

mind and body are connected wherever an action is performed. 
I have the will to grasp for the book before me, and obediently 
my arm performs the movement; the muscles contract them- 
selves, the whole physical apparatus comes into motion through 
the preceding mental fact. . . . But it is not only the impression 
of outer stimuli and the expression of inner thoughts in which 
mind and body come together. Daily life teaches us, for in- 
stance, how our mental states are dependent upon most various 
bodily influences. If the temperature of the blood is raised in 
fever, the mental processes may go over into far-reaching con- 
fusion; if hashish is smoked, the mind wanders to paradise, and 
a few glasses of wine may give a new mental optimism and 
exuberance; a cup of tea may make us sociable, a dose of bromide 
may annihilate the irritation of our mind, and when we inhale 
ether, the whole content of consciousness fades away. In every 
one of these cases the body received the chemical substance, the 
blood absorbed and carried it to the brain, and the change in the 
brain was accompanied by a change in the mental behavior. 
Even ordinary sleep at night presents itself surely as a bodily 
state — the fatigued brain cells demand their rest, and yet at the 
same time the whole mental life becomes entirely changed. It 
is not difficult to carry over such observations of daily life to the 
more exact studies of the psychological laboratory and to ex- 
amine with the subtle means of the psychological experiment the 
mental variations which occur with changes of physical condi- 
tions. We might feel, without instruments, that our ideas pass 
on more easily after a few cups of strong coffee, but the labora- 
tory may measure that with its exact methods, and study in 
thousandth parts of a second the quickening or retarding in the 
flow of ideas. Every subjective illusion being excluded, our 
electrical clocks, which measure the rapidity of mental action and 
of thought association, will show then beyond doubt how every 
change in the organism influences the processes of the mind. 
Bodily fatigue and indigestion, physical health and blood circu- 
lation, everything, influences our mental make-up. In the 
same way it is the laboratory experiment which shows by the 



238 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

subtlest means that every mental state produces bodily effects 
where we ordinarily ignore them. As soon as we apply the 
equipment of the psychological workshop, it is easy to show that 
even the slightest feeling may have its influence on the pulse and 
the respiration, on the blood circulation and on the glands; or, 
that our thoughts give impulse to our muscles and move our 
organs when we ourselves are entirely unaware of it." x 

Psycho-Physical Parallelism. — The doctrine of psycho-physical 
parallelism maintains that all mental processes have concomi- 
tant physical processes. It is not asserted that the physical life 
is the cause; rather the accompaniment or concomitant. The 
question of causal relations is purposely avoided. It is not neces- 
sary to consider it in psychology any more than it is in physics. 
We may say that two physical changes, as the striking of the 
bell by a hammer and the sound emitted, are concomitants of 
each other, without becoming involved in the endless and futile 
speculation as to causal relations. Similarly we may discuss 
concomitant mental and physical phenomena without placing 
upon ourselves any obligations to discuss the problem of cau- 
sality. The doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism has been 
summed up in the sentence: "There is no psychosis without 
neurosis." 

We do not know, for instance, how light produces chemical 
changes, or, in fact, how any chemical changes are produced. 
But we know that the changes are produced and are willing to 
trace the sequential relations as far as possible and not become 
impatient if the exact way the change occurs is unexplained. In 
plant physiology we trace out the life-processes like the circula- 
tion of the sap, the division of cellular structures and the repro- 
duction of new cells, the absorption of water and mineral foods 
in solution, the exhalation of oxygen through the stomata; we 

1 Munsterberg, Psychotherapy, pp. 34-36. 

Note. — My own manuscript on the chapter on " Correlations Between Mind 
and Body" was written (though unpublished) at least three years before 
Miinsterberg's above-mentioned book appeared. I take great pleasure in quot- 
ing liberally some confirmatory passages from Miinsterberg's book, — THE 
Author. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 239 

watch the formation of flowers, their fertilization and their 
change into fruit, and we say "how wonderful is life!" We do 
not say, "Now, Mr. Biologist, you must tell me what life is, or 
how sunshine and air are changed into plant tissue, or we shall 
discredit the whole explanation." 

Similarly in the study of mental life: though we cannot tell 
how a wave of light or of sound excites an idea, yet we know that 
a correlation exists between them, and it is the province of the 
psychologist to study this sequential relation. It is absolutely 
futile to attempt to study the phenomena of mind without 
studying at the same time its bodily concomitants. It is still 
more barren of results to try to study means of mental develop- 
ment and culture without considering the physical conditions 
most conducive to the production of the desired mental life. 
Child-study and physiological psychology have ushered in a new 
era in educational science. 

Spencer says: "No thought, no feeling, is ever manifested 
save as a result of a physical force. This principle will before 
long be a scientific commonplace." "That all of the psychic 
changes are accompanied by the display of energy in some form 
of material change in the nervous structures, is the most striking 
and far-reaching conclusion of modern psychology. . . . The 
general data of biology go to show that no physical change can 
take place in a living animal without directly or indirectly 
affecting the psychical condition of the animal. The psychical 
change may follow immediately as a sensation, and may remain as 
a new association in memory, or it may be a subconscious nervous 
co-ordination; or again the psychical change may be only a 
gradual change of the state of feeling, increasing or decreasing 
the vitality or general nervous activity of the animal." l To 
consider them as concomitants is not to subscribe to any doctrine 
of materialism or to maintain that man is an automaton or a 
machine. When I assert that a ray of light stimulated the 
retina giving rise to a nervous impulse that traversed the optic 
nerve, in turn producing cerebral changes, which signs were 

1 Qrr, A Theory of Development and Heredity, p. 83. 



240 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

translated into knowledge of the flowers or trees, I am not main- 
taining that knowledge begins with brain motion and ends there. 
I am not saying that the brain is a machine for converting sun- 
light into thought, Not at all. I still assume the existence of a 
mind which is able to use this material means and the exhibition 
of potentialities which I in no wise attempt to explain. But 
I do know that when I examine into the workings of mind, in 
order to understand as much as possible I must examine the 
concomitant nervous processes. Further, if I wish to secure 
given mental results in myself or in others, I must heed the cor- 
relative physiological laws. If I work too far into the night, my 
brain becomes fagged and my ideas will not develop. I must rec- 
ognize that in all mental work I develop my impressions through 
bodily means and that I must employ bodily means (hand, 
tongue, etc.) in order to give them expression. This is one of 
the most important lessons that a leader of children could learn. 

Dr. Carpenter has put it: "So long as either the mental or 
the bodily part of man's nature is studied to the exclusion of the 
other, it seems to the writer that no real progress can be made in 
psychological science [I should add, or in educational science]; 
for that which ' God hath joined together, ' it must be vain for 
man to try to put asunder." 1 

Brain Size and Intelligence. — Various popular notions prevail 
respecting the relation between brain size and mental ability. 
Some suppose that there is a definite measurable relation between 
the size (weight) of brains and intelligence; others consider that 
there is absolutely no relation. Recent researches by careful 
neurologists tend to make one very conservative upon this topic. 
So many individual variations occur that definite assertions 
should be made with caution. While it is found that the brain 
of Cuvier the great naturalist weighed 1,830 grams and that of 
Abercrombie the celebrated physician weighed 1,785 grams, 
yet it is recorded that the brain of Liebig the illustrious chemist 
weighed only 1,352 grams, that of Whewell the renowned 
philosopher 1,390 grams, and that of Tiedemann the celebrated 

1 Mental Physiology, p. 2. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 241 

anatomist only 1,254 grams. It is not at all uncommon to find 
laboring men of very moderate intelligence with a brain weight of 
1,500 grams or more. Thus, while it is true that we should 
find more very small brains among persons of low intelligence, 
and more very large brains among persons of a high order of 
intelligence, than vice versa, yet it would be unsafe to say that 
size of brain and intelligence are invariably correlated with each 
other. Donaldson 1 says: "While the heaviest brain-weights 
belong to the European races and the lightest to the Australians, 
thus giving a moderately wide difference in the weight of the 
brain corresponding to a wide difference in culture, yet it is 
quite impossible even in such a condensed series to harmonize 
the intermediate groups with the theory that brain-weight and 
culture, as we measure it, are closely correlated." 

In a comparative table Donaldson shows that the average 
brain-weight of European females is a little less than that of 
Australian males, and remarks that, "the inference from brain- 
weight directly to intelligence is not a happy one." His final 
conclusion is that the result of recent investigations concerning 
the correlation of these two qualities "contributes mainly to a 
healthy scepticism concerning the current interpretation of brain- 
weight." 

Still more positive statements are current with reference to the 
correlation between the convolutions of the brain and intelligence 
than concerning size and intelligence. Almost every school 
physiology has contained statements which have led the boys and 
girls almost invariably to rattle off parrot-fashion that the more 
convoluted the surface of the brain the greater the intelligence of 
its possessor. The statement is made that the higher in the 
scale of animal life, the more convolutions appear in the brain. 
Donaldson is authority for the statement that: "The signifi- 
cance of fissuration as an index of intelligence receives no sup- 
port from comparative anatomy, since the brains of ruminants 
are much more convoluted than those of the dog, while the 
heavier and more intelligent birds have brains that are nearly 

1 Growth of the Brain, p. 120. 



242 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

smooth." ! The researches go to show that no constant relation 
obtains between fissuration and intelligence. Certain schools 
have maintained that the brains of criminals are differently 
fissured from those of normal individuals. Donaldson denies 
this, although he says that since the fcetal brain is smooth, early 
disturbances of its growth are forerunners of abnormalities of 
fissures later in life, and these abnormalities of structure are 
usually accompanied by mental abnormalities. It has also 
been maintained that the brains of males have deeper fissures 
than the brains of females. Although it is generally agreed 
that the male brain tends to be more extensively fissured, yet 
"there are no characters by which the sex of a given brain can 
be recognized with certainty." 2 

It should be conceded, however, that although within a given 
class the variations in fissuration are not great enough to warrant 
positive declarations concerning the direct relation between 
convolutions and intelligence, yet the different classes of animals 
are distinctly different in this respect. It should also be stated 
that the more highly civilized races have somewhat heavier 
brains than the uncivilized races. Bastian 3 confirms this 
general position. He records observations showing that the 
average weight of several Europeans' brains was 1,390 grams, 
while the average' weight of a number of negroes' brains was 
1,255 grams. Many more cases need to be recorded in-order to 
gain more accurate data. Great care should also be taken to 
study the different tissues to see whether the gross weight comes 
from genuine brain matter or from other tissues which may make 
up the bulk. 

It is also to be noted that the majority of idiots have very small 
brains. Cases have been found where an idiot's brain weighed 
only 241 grams. It is doubtful whether any congenital idiots 
have brains of normal size and weight. Insane persons are too 
often classed as idiots, but this is absolutely erroneous, as an 
insane person is one who lacks balance and is not necessarily 

1 Op. cit., p. 201. 2 Op. ciL, p. 200. 

3 The Brain as an Organ of Mind, chap. 20. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 243 

devoid of intelligence. Some persons become imbecile through 
disease and these should not be classed with congenital idiots. 
Bastian writes: * "Where the weight of the brain falls below a 
certain minimum standard, the possession by its owner of any- 
thing like ordinary human intelligence seems to be impossible. 
Gratiolet, without specifying the sex, supposed this lower limit 
of weight to be about 31^ ounces, or 900 grams. Broca places 
it somewhat higher, fixing upon 32 ounces, or 907 grams, as the 
limit for the female, and 37 ounces, or 1,049 grams, as the lower 
limit of weight for the male brain, compatible with ordinary 
human intelligence." 

Carpenter says: 2 "There is, however, a marked diversity 
in respect of size between the brains of different races of men; 
those of the most civilized stocks, whose powers have been culti- 
vated and improved by education through a long series of genera- 
tions, being for the most part considerably larger than those of 
savage tribes, or of the least advanced among our own peasantry. 
So far as can be judged from the few cases which have furnished 
adequate materials for the determination, the brains of those 
earliest races of men, which (like the old ' flint- folk ') had made 
but a very slight advance in the arts of life, were extremely 
small." 

Spencer, Fiske, and Romanes have shown that in general 
there is a close correspondence between intelligence and the 
possession of organs capable of varied muscular activities. 
Brain bulk alone does not tell the story of intelligence, but the 
possession of a nervous mechanism so highly specialized as to 
give co-ordination of a great variety of actions is even more 
significant. Complexity of structure is more significant than 
mass. The extent of convoluted surface, and the number and 
complexity of the lobes growing from the brain-stem are good 
indexes of intelligence. Romanes 3 quotes Dujardin, who says 
that in the case of ants "the degree of intelligence exhibited 
stands in an inverse proportion to the amount of cortical sub- 

1 Op. cit., p. 364. 2 Mental Physiology, p. 95. 

3 Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 46. 



244 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

stance, or in direct proportion to the amount of the peduncular 
bodies and tubercles." 

Psychological and Zoological Scale Compared. — An examina- 
tion of the brains of extinct species shows that their cerebral 
lobes were much smaller than in present closely related species. 
Prof. E. Ray Lankester, who probably first drew attention 
to the fact and its significance, wrote the following: 1 "It is 
well established that the extinct mammalia of the middle and 
lower tertiaries had — as compared with their nearest living 
congeners — an extremely small cerebrum. The exact figures 
are not important, but titanotherium — a true rhinoceros — had 
certainly not more than one-fifth of the cerebral nervous sub- 
stance which is possessed by the living rhinoceros. Dinoceras, 
representing a distinct group of ungulata, had even a smaller 
brain. Yet in bulk these animals were as large as, or larger 
than, the largest living rhinoceros." 

Now what is the significance of the increase of the proportional 
cerebral development? The added size is not necessary for 
physical control. The lower centres furnish this in abundance. 
Many of the lowliest animals control the movements of the 
muscles much more skilfully than man can possibly do. Any 
one would be quite content to run as swiftly as a dog, to jump as 
far and as dexterously as a cat, or to approximate the agility of the 
lion or monkey. In fact, the intellectual giant is often the muscu- 
lar pigmy, and the clown in movement. Since the dawn of mind 
development has been turned in directions more useful than the 
maintenance of muscular strength and skill. 

"Man is born with fewer ready-made tricks of the nerve-cen- 
tres — those performances of an inherited nervous mechanism 
so often called by the ill-defined term 'instincts' — than are the 
monkeys or any other animal. Correlated with this absence 
of inherited ready-made mechanism, man has a greater capacity 
for developing in the course of his individual growth similar 
nervous mechanisms . . . than any other animal. He has a 
greater capacity for 'learning' and storing his individual 

1 Nature, 61 : 624, April 26, 1900. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 245 

experience, so as to take the place of the more general inherited 
brain mechanisms of lower mammals. Obviously such brain 
mechanisms as the individual thus develops (habits, judgments, 
etc.) are of greater value in the struggle for existence than are 
the less specially-fitted instinctive inborn mechanisms of a race, 
species or genus. The power of being educated — ' educability' 
— as we may term it — is what man possesses in excess as com- 
pared with the apes. I think we are justified in forming the 
hypothesis that it is this 'educability' which is the correlative 
of the increased size of the cerebrum." * 



TABLE SHOWING RELATION BETWEEN BRAIN-WEIGHT AND BODY- 
WEIGHT, AND OF BRAIN TO WHOLE NERVOUS SYSTEM. J 



BRAIN 
TO BODY 



BRAIN TO 
NERVOUS SYSTEM 



Fishes — 
Reptiles. . 

Birds 

Mammals 
Man 



1 : 1,000 
1 : 1,000 
1 : 100 
1 : 200 
1:50 



i:7 = | 

5:1 = 5 times 

3:1 = 3 times 

30 : 1 = 30 times 



While there is an apparent justification for assuming that the 
higher in the zoological scale the higher the mental order, yet 
there are many notable exceptions. We find also that the zoolog- 
ical classification will not answer for a scale based on mentality. 
It is a fact that small animals have larger brains proportionately 
than large animals. Some of the smallest birds have larger 
brains proportionately than man. A table showing brain- 
weight compared with body-weight would place the sheep 
higher than the elephant. Whoever knows the stupidity of the 
former and the sagacity of the latter can contradict that. 

Of more significance than size is the proportional amount of 
gray and white matter. The gray matter being the generator of 
nervous force and the white the transmitter, it is obvious that 

1 E. Ray Lankester, Nature, 61 : 624. 

2 Le Conte, Comparative Physiology and Morphology of Animals, p. 73. 



246 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

gray matter is the better index of organization. In the ascending 
scale of life we find that there is a larger and larger proportion of 
gray matter. Correlated with this in a general way we find 
that the greater the proportion of gray matter the more numerous 
the convolutions of the brain affording surface for it. All 
animals below the mammals have smooth brains. In general, 
the higher the class psychically the more convoluted the brain 
surface. Man has the most convoluted brain of all the animals. 
There are certain variations in the general relations, however, 
that should be noted. It is not so necessary for small brains as 
for large ones to be convoluted. A small brain has relatively 
more surface than a large one, because the surfaces of solids 
vary with the square of the diameters, while bulk varies as the 
cube of the diameters. Thus all large animals have convoluted 
brains while all small ones have smooth ones. 

The most significant visible feature, however, is the size of the 
cerebral lobe. A most cursory examination of a series of brains 
shows an ever-increasing amount of cerebral surface as the 
zoological scale ascends. No other feature is so indicative of 
the grade of intelligence. Each succeeding order has a larger 
proportion of cerebral matter, and the higher the species within 
the order zoologically, the better developed the cerebrum. There 
is no doubt also that cerebral development is closely correlated 
with intelligence. The control of deliberative thought and all 
higher psychoses is a function of the cerebrum. The most 
striking difference between the brain of a man and an ape is in 
the degree of cerebral development. This is easily inferred by 
comparing a series of brains with the character of mental life 
exhibited by those classes of animals represented. Even a tyro 
would arrive at this inference. Experiments and observations 
made possible through accidental lesions and through purposive 
brain surgery all tend to confirm the empirical opinion that the 
frontal lobes are the seat of the higher mental life. In examining 
a series of brains from fishes to man the feature which shows 
steady progress is that of the cerebrum. All the features except 
the cerebrum are practically as large and as well developed in 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 247 

many of the lower animals as in man. In some cases, for exam- 
ple, the olfactory lobes in dogs, cats, and other animals, are 
much in excess. The frontal lobes are plainly of no advantage 
in merely controlling the vital processes, for what animal is so 
fragile as man? It is only after long generations of medical 
skill that it is possible to bring more than one-half of the human 
race to maturity, while lower animals seldom die of disease. 
Cerebral development does not minister to skill in muscular 
movement. Who does not envy the animals their power of 
locomotion and marvellous strength and speed? In definite 
instinctive endowment, again, man is inferior to lower animals. 
The lower centres control reflex and instinctive movements. 
They are also the centres which conserve all automatic processes 
and habits involving muscular movements. 

The highly developed frontal lobes are certainly the physio- 
logical structures which have made possible a high degree of 
education in man. No animal devoid of this development can 
plan deliberate action or make much use of experiences in the 
interpretation and mastery of new situations. Though they 
accomplish many instinctive automatic actions with wonderful 
precision and rapidity, they benefit little by experience and suc- 
ceeding generations execute the same actions and in the same 
practically unchanged manner. Therefore we may conclude 
that highly developed cerebral lobes are an index of educability. 
In idiots and persons of a low order of mentality this portion 
of the brain is usually poorly developed. Conversely Carpenter 
says * that "where the cerebrum is so imperfectly developed as to 
be greatly under the average size, there is a marked deficiency 
in intelligence, amounting to absolute idiocy." 

The weight, size, and general configuration of the nervous 
system are good indexes of the scale of life occupied, but within 
a given species undoubtedly the quality of the tissues themselves 
is more determinative of the rank which the individual is to 
occupy. Scales, microscopes, and chemical reagents have thus 
far failed to reveal just what those structural differences may be; 

1 Mental Physiology, p. 97. 



248 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

but that such exist can scarcely be doubted. We all know that 
mere size and form of muscles are not absolute indexes of strength. 
Frequently a small individual is both actually stronger and has 
a greater vital capacity than much larger ones. So it is with 
brains. Quality as well as quantity and proportion must be 
taken into account. 

James wrote in this connection: * "All nervous centres have 
then, in the first instance, one essential function, that of ' intelli- 
gent action.' They feel, prefer one thing to another, and have 
'ends.' Like all the organs, however, they evolve from ancestor 
to descendant, and their evolution takes two directions, the lower 
centres passing downward into more unhesitating automatism, 
and the higher ones upward into larger intellectuality. Thus 
it may happen that those functions which can safely grow uniform 
and fatal become least accompanied by mind, and that their 
organ, the spinal cord, becomes a more and more soulless ma- 
chine; whilst on the contrary those functions which it benefits 
the animal to have adapted to delicate environing variations 
pass more and more to the hemispheres, whose anatomical 
structure and attendant consciousness grow more and more 
elaborate as zoological evolution proceeds. In this way it 
might come about that in man and the monkeys the basal ganglia 
should do fewer things by themselves than they can do in dogs, 
fewer in dogs than in rabbits, fewer in rabbits than in hawks, 
fewer in hawks than in pigeons, fewer in pigeons than in frogs, 
fewer in frogs than in fishes, and that the hemispheres should cor- 
respondingly do more. This passage of functions forward to the 
ever enlarging hemispheres would be itself one of the evolutive 
changes, to be explained like the development of the hemispheres 
themselves, either by fortunate variation or by inherited effects 
of use. The reflexes, on this view, upon which the education of 
our human hemispheres depends, would not be due to the basal 
ganglia alone. They would be tendencies in the hemispheres 
themselves, modifiable by education, unlike the reflexes of the 
medulla oblongata, pons, optic lobes and spinal cord." 

1 Principles of Psychology, I, p. 79. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 249 

Le Conte writes: * "In the process of development, whether 
in the evolution series, or in the taxonomic series, or in the em- 
bryonic series, we observe the same order. Organisms are at 
first unmodified cell-aggregates. From such aggregates tissues 
performing different functions are differentiated. From this 
time onward cephalization begins. Among the tissues there is a 
gradually increasing dominance of the highest, . . . the nervous 
tissue. Then, in the nervous tissue a gradually increasing 
dominance of the highest part, viz., the brain. Then, in the 
brain a gradually increasing dominance of the highest ganglion, 
viz., the cerebrum. Then, in the cerebrum a gradually increasing 
dominance of the highest substance, the surface gray matter, 
as shown by the complexity of the convolutions. And, lastly, 
among the convolutions a gradually increasing dominance of the 
highest, viz., those in the frontal lobe, as shown by the position of 
the fissure of Rolando. In all there is an increasing dominance 
of the higher over the lower, and of the highest over all. This is 
everywhere the law of evolution." As Gaskell has said : "The 
law for the whole animal kingdom is the same as for the individ- 
ual. Success in this world depends upon brains." 2 

Psychotherapeutics. — As diseases are induced and aggravated 
by the imagination, conversely the alleviation and the cure of 
disease are much dependent upon the imagination. It is un- 
scientific to assert that all disease is purely imaginary or that 
there is no disease. Unfortunately the world is altogether too 
full of suffering and disease. But we should not lose sight of 
the well-established laws of mental and bodily interaction and 
should utilize this knowledge in every possible manner. Every 
good physician consciously or unconsciously does this. What 
success would a physician have if every time he entered the sick- 
room he remarked in the following fashion: "This is the worst 
case I ever knew; much like one I had last week that proved 
fatal." But how much the patient is aided by a cheery " Good 

1 Comparative Physiology and Morphology of Animals, p. 83. 

2 The Origin of Vertebrates. See also E. H. Starling, " The Physiological 
Basis of Success," Science, N. S., vol. XXX, September 24, 1909, pp. 389-401. 



250 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

morning! You're progressing finely." Physicians have re- 
ported to me that in many cases harmless pills or colored H 2 
are just as effective as anything else. The case of a young 
woman who had been bedridden for years was told me by one 
who compounded some medicines prescribed for her relief. She 
had tried every physician accessible and every remedy known 
to them. Finally a new doctor came to the town. He asked to 
be given the case, saying that he had a new remedy which had 
proved absolutely efficacious in similar cases. He was given the 
case, and inside of a month the young lady was entirely restored. 
He afterward said that the medicine consisted absolutely of pure 
water and a little coloring matter. 

Sir Crichton Browne 1 wrote: "The success or failure of a 
practitioner will often depend as much on experience as a medi- 
cal psychologist as on skill in simples." Schofield 2 said that: 
"Dr. Rush never prescribed remedies of a doubtful efficacy in 
the various stages of acute disease till he 'had worked up his 
patients with a confidence bordering on certainty of their proba- 
ble good effects. The success of this measure has much oftener 
answered than disappointed my expectation.' ... In neglecting 
the systematic and scientific employment of mental influence in 
the course of disease, medical practitioners throw aside a weapon 
for combating it, more powerful than all the drugs in the Pharma- 
copoeia." 

Sir Thomas Grainger Stewart is quoted by Dr. A. Morrison 3 
as saying: "In heart disease the most important element is 
rest. Second in importance is perhaps the element of hope. 
If a patient becomes persuaded that he may recover, that good 
compensation may be established, he becomes more hopeful 
about himself and his heart benefits correspondingly. If a 
patient is gloomy and despondent, this damages the organ in a 
way we cannot at present fully explain." 

Maudsley 4 has expressed a strong belief in the influence of 
mental therapeutics in the cure of disease. He wrote: "Per- 

1 British Medical Journal, 1889, 2 : 400. 2 Unconscious Mind, p. 375. 

3 Practitioner, 1892, p. 29. 4 Body and Mind, p. 39. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 251 

haps we do not, as physicians, consider sufficiently the influence 
of mental states in the production of disease, and their importance 
as symptoms, or take all the advantage which we might take of 
them in our efforts to cure it. Quackery seems to have here got 
hold of a truth which legitimate medicine fails to appreciate 
and use adequately. Assuredly the most successful physician 
is he who, inspiring the greatest confidence in his remedies, 
strengthens and exalts the imagination of his patients; if he 
orders a few drops of peppermint-water with the confident air of 
curing the disease, does he not do more sometimes for the 
patient than one who treats him in the most approved scientific 
way, but without inspiring a conviction of his recovery?" 

A new era is dawning in the utilization of psychological means 
in therapeutics. Too much quackery and charlatanism have 
characterized the attempts down to the present time and as a 
consequence the whole of psychology has been discredited and its 
applications to medicine have been feared. However, physicians 
and psychologists have begun to take up the matter in a serious 
way. Many physicians, without advertising the fact, are study- 
ing psychology and applying it in a helpful way in their practice. 
The most hopeful sign of its coming general recognition is in the 
fact that many medical colleges have already made psychology 
one of the required studies in the curriculum. 1 The appearance 
of such books as Miinsterberg's Psychotherapy will do much to 
place the subject upon a scientific basis. Miinsterberg says 
that: "Indeed the times seem ripe for a systematic introduction 
of psychological studies into every medical course. It is not a 
question of mental research in the psychological laboratory 
where advanced work is carried on, but a solid foundation in 
empirical psychology can be demanded of everyone. He ought 
to have as much psychology as he has had physiology. . . . The 
ideal demand would be that the future physician should spend 
at least a year of his undergraduate time on empirical psychol- 
ogy, especially on experimental and physiological psychology." 

1 The writer was appointed Lecturer on Psychology in the Milwaukee Medical 
College in 1900. Removal from the city soon after the appointment made it 
impossible to enter upon the work. 



252 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

He writes further: "It must not be forgotten that mental 
factors may enter into every disease. The psychology of pain, 
for instance, and of comfort feeling, the psychology of hunger 
and thirst, of nausea and dizziness, the psychology of the sexual 
feelings, the psychology of hope and fear, of confidence and dis- 
couragement, of laziness and energy, of sincerity and cunning- 
ness, play their role in almost every sick-room. And if the physi- 
cian haughtily declares that he does not care for the methods of 
suggestion, it might justly be asked whether he can be a phy- 
sician at all if he does not apply some suggestions; yes, if his 
very entrance into the sick-room does not suggest relief and im- 
provement from the start ? The introduction of a serious study 
of psychology is the most immediate need of the medical curric- 
ulum. . . . Can the medical profession afford to send into the 
world every year thousands of young doctors who are unable to 
use some of the most effective tools of modern medicine, and 
tools which do not belong to the specialist but just to the aver- 
age practitioner, simply because they have not learned any 
psychology?" 1 

Bearings upon Abnormal Pedagogy. — In educating those who 
are sub-normal or nervous it is important to understand the 
correlations between mind and body. Certain types of children 
may be saved much suffering by rational pedagogic treatment. 
For example, night terrors occur in children of neurotic, scrof- 
ulous, or anaemic types. The immediate causes may be over- 
excitement during the day from excessive play, fright, worry over 
examinations, indigestion, catarrh, ear trouble, diseases of the 
eyes which produce hallucinations, and hosts of others. Insanity 
is very closely connected with nervous conditions. There are the 
senile dementias occurring when the brain undergoes dissolu- 
tion; those arising from brain lesions, clots in the brain, spinal in- 
juries, and the like. Then there are also several special periods 
of life when the mind is peculiarly liable to become disordered. 
The age of puberty claims many victims. Clouston has made 
a special study of the neuroses and insanities of pubertal develop- 

1 Psychotherapy, pp. 364-366. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 253 

ment. Because of the unstable condition of mind and body at 
this time, overwork and worry are especially liable to produce 
insanities. Hereditary predispositions to insanity which have 
been latent but deferred will usually crop out in adolescence if 
ever. Several epochs in the life of women characterized by 
far-reaching physical changes are frequently the occasions for 
the development of hypochondria, melancholia, hysteria, suicidal 
manias, and - various other mental disorders. " Observation of 
the phenomena of defective and disordered mind proves their 
essential dependence on defective and disordered brain. . . . 
The insane neurosis which the child inherits in consequence of 
its parent's insanity is as surely a defect of physical nature as is 
the epileptic neurosis to which it is so closely allied." ' 

Almost all forms of bodily disease may be the exciting causes 
of mental disorders. Hyslop 2 mentions such affections as indi- 
gestion, bad teeth, defective masticat'ion, duodenal catarrh, 
functional perversions of the liver, spleen, or pancreas; peritoni- 
tis; diseases of the heart and circulatory organs, cardiac valvular 
lesions, phthisis, and many others. Idiocy, epilepsy, feeble- 
mindedness, are probably always accompaniments of defective 
nervous development or physical malformations. Many crim- 
inologists declare that all criminals are fatally predisposed tow- 
ard crime by physical defects. They claim that even outward 
measurements disclose marked atypical or malformed features. 
While they probably entirely overrate the direct correlation be- 
tween bodily defects and moral delinquencies, yet there is a 
sufficient basis of truth to cause educators to suspect mental 
peculiarities if glaring physical defects are present. 

Importance in Normal Pedagogy. — A knowledge of the inti- 
mate interrelations between mind and body is very important 
in the pedagogical treatment of normal children. All mental 
life is absolutely dependent upon bodily activity for expression. 
No thought can be revealed to others except through some 
physical manifestation. Every thought tends to issue in some 
form of motor activity and unless the motor phase is developed the 

1 Mandsley, Body and Mind, p. 68. 2 Mental Physiology, p. 510. 



254 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

idea does not come to completeness. The body possesses all the 
gateways to the soul and no message can issue except through 
the medium of bodily expression. Consequently, how important 
that all the avenues of impression and expression be in absolutely 
the best possible working order. It is a tacit recognition of this 
interrelation which has caused so much attention to be given in 
recent years to testing the eyes and ears of school-children. It is 
recognized that poor work is frequently a result of sense-defects, 
often easily remedied. 

The Doctrine of Innate Ideas. — The old doctrine of innate 
ideas, or even the doctrine which assumes the complete disparate- 
ness and independence of mind and body, when applied in edu- 
cational practice made instruction a wordy process. According 
to the doctrine of innate ideas it was assumed that the individual 
had in his mind all the knowledge that he would ever possess. 
The function of the teacher was merely to develop ideas already 
in possession of the learner. The teacher, according to Socrates, 
was to be a midwife of ideas. Teaching was a science of 
maieutics, i. e., a science of giving birth to ideas. Many teachers, 
though not professed disciples of the Socratic method, still 
proceed as if they believed the child could express ideas which he 
has never gained. They try to "develop" ideas which he does 
not possess. They try to pump water from the well when it 
is dry. Ideas cannot be "developed" until they have- been 
gained, and in placing the child in possession of ideas it must be 
constantly borne in mind that the mind can never possess any 
knowledge whatsoever which has not been gained through sense- 
perception, either as a whole or in its elements. 

The period of the reign of the doctrine of the innateness of 
ideas and of the belief in the complete independence of mind from 
body, may well be termed the dark ages. Men possessed eyes 
and they saw not. It was a deaf age, for they possessed ears and 
heard not. It was an age of anaesthesia, for they possessed touch 
and felt not. Rather than test the world of phenomena by 
means of their senses, they relied on tradition and superstition for 
their interpretation of the universe. Their ancestors had used 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 255 

their senses and evolved theories, crude and childish to be sure, 
and in so doing had developed sense-organs with potentialities 
for using them. But the educated men of the Middle Ages had 
come to believe that all flesh is of the devil and that the body 
must be abased in order to elevate the spirit. Scholars shut 
themselves away from the world in monasteries, scourged the 
body and subjected it to tortures of every description. Instead 
of nourishing the body and giving it exuberance and vigor, 
they reduced its vitality and dulled the senses through fasting 
and long hours. By retirement within dingy walls they, so to 
speak, closed their ears and eyes, and all the other senses, to the 
knowledge and beauty of the world of phenomena all about 
them. Instead of drinking in new knowledge and inspiration, 
and subjecting the ideas of their ancestors to new tests and thus 
evolving new interpretations and new facts, blind and deaf and 
anaesthetic as they were, they merely copied, copied, copied, and 
passed on old traditions and old superstitions, which became 
more distorted as time passed. What wonder, then, that witch- 
craft and sorcery were believed in and that every method of 
torture that could be devised by disordered imaginations was 
visited upon the unschooled or upon those who had broken from 
their mural confines and through the evidence of their re- 
enthroned senses had gained a few independent ideas for 
themselves ? 

Middle-Age Asceticism. — The Middle-Age ascetics went so 
far as to assert that spiritual development could be best furthered 
by bodily torture. Consequently, in order to elevate the mind 
they strove to devise tortures to mortify the flesh. We read of 
their fasting, eating inappropriate foods, going barefooted and 
otherwise scantily clad in the dead of winter, wearing hair 
shirts with the hair inside, bathing in ice-cold springs in winter, 
sitting on sharp nails, assuming unnatural and extremely un- 
comfortable postures for months at a time, binding the body 
with weights, living in filth, going without sleep and working all 
day and all night, etc. St. Simeon Stylites lived for fifty years 
chained to the top of a high pillar, and St. Macarius slept for 



256 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

months in a marsh exposing his naked body to the stings of 
venomous flies, in the misguided notion that the greater the 
bodily penance the more exalted the spirit became. In fact, they 
tried to devise every possible means of excruciating torture of 
body in the attempt to exalt the mind. To this pernicious doc- 
trine of the relation between body and mind can be traced not 
only the long intellectual night of the Middle Ages, but also to it 
may be directly ascribed the belief in witchcraft, demonophobia, 
sorcery, 2nd the superstition that insane people were possessed 
of evil spirits. Professor Monroe 1 says: "The virtue of the 
monk was often measured by his ingenuity in devising new and 
fantastic methods of mortifying the flesh. ... All these forms 
of discipline were for the sake of the spiritual growth, the moral 
betterment of the penitent: all these, as the very significance of 
the word 'asceticism' indicates, reveal the dominant conception 
of education which prevailed throughout this long period, — the 
idea of discipline of the physical nature for the sake of growth 
in moral and spiritual power." 

So long as the body was considered gross and evil and a mean 
tenement of clay from which the spirit should strive as soon as 
possible to escape, it was but natural that bodily care, and much 
less, culture, should be considered unworthy objects of education. 
With that prevailing view of the mind it was only natural that 
subjects of study in a curriculum were deemed unimportant 
in themselves but were regarded as "grindstones" upon which 
pupils were to sharpen their wits. Listen even to Montaigne, 
in many respects a pioneer of sense-realism in education, but 
who falls into the language of the time in discussing educational 
conceptions. He says: "That he may whet and sharpen his 
wits by rubbing them upon those of others, I would have a boy 
sent abroad very young." Rhabanus Maurus, an educator of 
the ninth century, reveals the ideal when he says: "Dialectic 
... is the queen of arts and sciences. In it reason dwells, and 
is manifested and developed. It is dialectic alone that can give 
knowledge and wisdom; it alone shows what and whence we 

1 History of Education, p. 248. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 257 

are, and teaches us our destiny; through it we learn to know 
good and evil." 

Present-Day Renaissance. — Contrast the present rational 
theories with reference to means of securing mental results with 
those of the Middle Ages. It was not for lack of educational 
theory at that time that such pernicious practices in education 
abounded. It was rather because of absolutely false psycholog- 
ical theories. Ideas were thought to be innate. It was a late 
discovery, not yet wholly accepted in theory, much less in prac- 
tice, that all knowledge takes its rise in the senses. Body and 
spirit were considered at war with each other. The whole object 
of life was to debase the body and to exalt the spirit. Hence 
the monastic torture and crucifixion of the body, in the thought, 
sincerely believed, that the spirit was being ennobled and fitted 
for the much-wished-for time when it could free itself of the 
body. No more significant educational era has ever dawned 
than the present, and one of the most important features is the 
just recognition of the importance of properly cherishing the 
physical temple of the soul. The renaissance of bodily adora- 
tion will be writ down in educational history as marking the 
most important mile-post down to the present. Not to neglect 
the inhabitant of this temple in our rush for physical culture, 
not to apotheosize mere brute force is the only caution that 
needs to be suggested. Hence, in any proper consideration of 
psychology or educational processes it is absolutely impossible 
to divorce the bodily and mental processes. 

Because of the growing recognition of the intimate relation 
between mind and body very great changes have been brought 
about in the conditions under which the education of children 
is given. Better school buildings are being provided and due 
attention is being devoted to sanitation, including heating, 
lighting, ventilation, plumbing, seating, arrangement of corridors, 
minimizing of dust, etc. Locations are more carefully chosen, 
so as to escape unsanitary surroundings, noise, and other dis- 
tracting influences. 

Not only are bodily health conditions considered but effects 



258 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of physical surroundings upon the intellectual, aesthetic, and 
moral life are being regarded as equal in importance. School 
architecture, landscape gardening, interior finish and decorations, 
pictures, statuary, surrounding views, all are subjects of careful 
study and scrutiny in the most enlightened communities. Not 
only is there a desire to help develop sound bodies, but an 
endeavor is being made to provide physical surroundings which 
will stimulate healthful intellectual, aesthetic, and moral growth. 
Playgrounds and gymnasiums are being equipped so as to 
utilize one of the most deep-seated and important of instincts. 
Intelligent attention is being directed to the question of inter- 
missions, holidays, vacations, length of school-day and recitation 
and study periods. Hungry children are being fed, the ragged 
clothed, the sick nursed, and the sorrowing comforted. Child 
labor laws are rescuing thousands from the dwarfing influences 
of factory, mine, and other overtaxing labor. 

Not only are courses of study carefully arranged, but study 
periods and conditions, as well as recitation periods, are coming 
to be thought worthy of equal consideration. In fact, with right 
study conditions, most of the recitation difficulties disappear. 
The eyesight and hearing of children are being carefully in- 
vestigated so as to correct as many defects as possible and to 
relieve disadvantages and embarrassment in other cases. "The 
examination of any public school quickly leads to the discovery 
that much which is taken for impaired mental activity, for lack 
of attention, for. stupidity, or laziness may be the result of 
defective hearing or sight or abnormal growth of the ade- 
noids. Growths in the nose may be operated upon, the astig- 
matic or the shortsighted eye may be corrected by glasses, the 
child who is hard of hearing may at least be seated near the 
teacher; and the backward children quickly reach the average 
level." x 

The objective method of teaching is being given a better 
recognition through provision for field and laboratory work. 
Beginnings have also been made in the better adjustment of the 

1 Munsterberg, Psychotherapy, p. 189. 



CORRELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 259 

intellectual work to the possibilities of the child as determined 
by his physical and mental development. 

But notwithstanding all that has been accomplished in these 
important directions, an exceedingly large amount yet needs to 
be done. Heating, lighting, plumbing, and ventilation are still 
far from perfect; school architecture is seldom under the control 
of experts who know the needs of the schools; the health of 
children is insufficiently protected and promoted; the greatest 
ignorance still prevails concerning the proper nourishment of 
growing children; and a scientific knowledge of how to adjust 
the curriculum to the varying needs of the vast numbers of 
children is only just beginning to appear. And of teaching what 
shall we say? Experts are few, their knowledge confessedly 
limited, and a teaching profession does not exist in America! 
But we must be optimistic, for there are unmistakable signs of 
progress. Many further applications of the law of psycho- 
physical parallelism will receive fuller treatment in subsequent 
pages. 



CHAPTER XI 
WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 

Physiological Effects of Exercise. — Whenever work is done, 
energy is liberated and a disintegration of tissue takes place. 
This is the case when mental work is done no less than when 
the exercise is physical. In fact, mental labor necessitates the 
greater expenditure of energy. Hence, " in the study of fatigue 
it is the changes in the material stored in the active cells at any 
one time that claim attention." x 

The changes due to metabolism of the nerve-cells and conse- 
quent fatigue were first demonstrated by Hodge. He delivered 
some of the pioneer lectures on this subject in 1891 at the 
University of Wisconsin. He studied the effects of exercise 
upon the brain-cells of frogs, cats, honey-bees, and pigeons. 
By electrically stimulating the peripheral trunks of the nerves 
leading to the spinal ganglion of the cat, he was able to study 
the effects of varying amounts of exercise and rest. The nerve 
was stimulated for fifteen seconds, then allowed to rest forty-five 
seconds, the work and rest periods continuing alternately during 
a period of five hours. At the end of one hour the nuclei had 
shrunken in volume about twenty-two per cent. In some cases 
the shrinkage at the end of five hours was fully fifty per cent. 
Observations were carried on for twenty-nine hours, or twenty- 
four hours subsequent to the last stimulation. Complete res- 
toration occurred within twenty-four hours. The length of 
time varied with different animals. Accompanying the shrink- 
age there was a turgescence of protoplasm, and a chemical change 
occurred as shown by their reaction to staining reagents. The 
nucleus, nucleolus, and cytoplasm of the cells themselves were 

'Donaldson, Growth of the Brain, p. 311. 
260 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 261 

all affected, the cytoplasm becoming vacuolated, the muscles 
first increasing in size and then diminishing. 1 

Dr. Hodge studied the effects of exercise upon the nerve-cells 
of the pigeon, swallow, and honey-bee by examining the nerves 
of those killed early in the morning after a night's repose, and 
others of the same colony after a day's flight. He was thus 
enabled to discover the fatigued cells from the cortex of 
pigeons, those from the antennary lobes of honey-bees, from the 
spinal ganglia of English sparrows, and the cerebellum of swal- 
lows. The cells of the animals examined in all cases after 
exercise were found to be smaller and of a darker color than in 
fresh specimens. Other authors through subsequent experi- 
ments have corroborated many of his conclusions. Hodge also 
compared the cells of aged animals with those of young animals 
of the same species, and noted that the cells in old age present 
many of the symptoms of permanent fatigue. 

Meaning of Fatigue. — Fatigue is produced by a chemical 
process. Muscular action increases the oxygen absorbed and 
produces additional carbon dioxide. One of the principal sub- 
stances produced by fatigue of muscle or nerve is lactic acid. 
There is a change not only in the size and microscopic appearance 
of the cell, but in histological appearance. It may be easily 
demonstrated that the toxins formed in the blood by exercise 
are important, if not the principal causes of fatigue. Mosso 
says: 2 "They are not so much poisons as dross and impuri- 
ties arising from the chemical processes of cellular life, and are 
normally burned up by the oxygen of the blood, destroyed in 
the liver, or excreted by the kidneys. If these waste products 
accumulate in the blood, we feel fatigued; when their amount 
passes the physiological limit, we become ill." 

Mosso and others have performed experiments to demonstrate 
the foregoing idea. By electrically stimulating the nervous 
system of a dog, tetanus is produced which modifies the blood 
and gives all the symptoms of fatigue. If the blood of this dog 

1 Donaldson, Growth of the Brain, pp. 317-323. 

2 Fatigue, p. 118. 



262 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

be injected into the veins of a fresh dog, the latter will at once 
become affected with all the symptoms of fatigue. Mosso cites 
other experiments in which he proves that temporary fatigue of 
muscles is a result of poisonous accumulations and not a result 
of the exhaustion of the substance of the muscles. The muscles 
of the frog's leg which have been fatigued by exercise can be 
restored to normal contractions by merely washing (injecting) 
with slightly saline water. Mosso makes a statement which will 
doubtless surprise many, viz.: "The blood, that mysterious 
liquid which Moses believed to be the seat of life and which 
Pythagoras called the nutriment of the soul, is not absolutely 
necessary to the functions of life, since we can remove it entirely 
and put saline solution in its place. The experiment is per- 
formed by cutting the abdominal vein and fastening therein a 
fine reed. Saline solution (0.75 per cent.) is then injected by 
means of a syringe until nothing but this clear liquid is circulat- 
ing, and we obtain a frog which contains no blood. Frogs in this 
condition can live for a day or two, and during the first ten or 
twelve hours they are difficult to distinguish from normal frogs. 
It is not possible to perform such an experiment upon a warm- 
blooded animal, because the nervous system cannot stand so 
great a disturbance of its environment." x 

A feeling of fatigue is nature's warning that katabolism is in 
excess of anabolism, that waste exceeds repair. It indicates a 
disturbed equilibrium in the machinery of life. Under normal 
conditions this warning is issued in time, work ceases, and repair 
and excess growth ensue. But in pathological cases the destruc- 
tion may go on until almost too late for recuperation. 

Causes of Fatigue. — Bad heredity is a usual predisposing 
cause of fatigue. Normally developed and well-cared-for chil- 
dren seldom experience pathological fatigue from reasonable 
work. Work under such conditions induces an increased blood 
supply and is a prerequisite for growth. Defective eyesight or 
hearing, through the strain produced, are responsible for many 
headaches and much fatigue. An undeveloped heart, poor 

1 Fatigue, p. 108. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 263 

breathing apparatus, diminutive cerebral blood-vessels, insuffi- 
cient food or malnutrition, are all responsible for many cases of 
fatigue. They are, of course, difficult of diagnosis. 

Pathological fatigue is sometimes produced in adults by over- 
work, in children seldom. Dissipation of energies, intemper- 
ance, and irregularities of living are much more often the cause. 
Smith Baker said * that injurious results frequently ascribed to 
"studying too hard" can usually be traced to something else. 
"Much more frequently, dangerous fatigue is the result of un- 
healthy confinement within doors, or is owing to unwholesome 
shocks, and puzzlings, and confusions, and conflicts of impulses 
resulting from the imposition of scatterbrain notions of teaching 
and discipline — imposed much too fast for the child to grow to, 
or even to comprehend. Or, again, it may be owing to a state 
of chronic apprehension and fear caused by injudicious exercise 
of 'authority,' largely based on certain vicious interpretations 
of children's characteristics, moods, and tendencies." 

Galton wrote: 2 "We must be on our guard against estimat- 
ing a man's energy too strictly by the work he accomplishes, 
because it makes a great deal of difference whether he loves his 
work or not. A man with no interest is rapidly fagged. Pris- 
oners are well nourished and cared for, but they cannot perform 
the task of an ill-fed and ill-housed laborer. Whenever they 
are forced to do more than their usual small amount, they show 
all the symptoms of being overtasked, and sicken. An army in 
retreat suffers in every way, while one in the advance, being full 
of hope, may perform prodigious feats." 

Vitiated air is a most prolific cause of fatigue. It is rare to 
find a school-building a decade old which is not absolutely 
inadequate in its appointments for ventilation. Engineering 
science is still wrestling with the problem of providing proper 
ventilation without undue waste of heat. Mastery seems a 
long way off. But even with the inadequate facilities for venti- 
lation, rooms frequently contain fifty per cent, more pupils than 

1 "Fatigue in School Children," Educational Review, 15 : 35. 

2 English Men of Science; Their Nature and Nurture, p. 75. 



264 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ought to be there if the ventilation were perfect. Many teachers 
have dull sensibility to bad air, and even those with acute sensi- 
bility who remain in a room continuously as the poisons gradu- 
ally accumulate do not notice the change readily. On the same 
principle that a frog may be boiled alive without feeling pain, 
provided the temperature is increased gradually enough, pupils 
may be badly poisoned from contaminated air without realizing 
that it is impure. The air in many school-rooms is execrable. 
I have visited schools in some small cities where the banks were 
the most conspicuous buildings, but in which the school-rooms 
were fairly reeking with moisture, and the odors from bodily 
exhalations were sickening. Dr. Amy Tanner remarks that 
"the air in most schools is heavy from the first half hour after 
school opens to the end of the day. Then the janitor locks in the 
bad air to be used again the next morning." * 

Ventilation of living and sleeping rooms in the homes of pupils 
is seldom adequate. The superstition that night air is impure, 
and the fear of wasting heat, cause the majority of people to 
sleep in rooms with absolutely no provision for the ingress of 
pure air and the egress of the foul. Fresh air, the one necessary 
luxury that might be had in abundance by the masses, is bolted 
and barred by them. No habit could be of greater value to 
children than that of breathing in deeply and slowly pure air 
to completely inflate the lungs several times a day. A little 
attention to this will develop an appetite for fresh air which will 
not be satisfied with foul and insufficient air. Tuberculosis 
would seldom develop if living-rooms were ventilated properly 
and if correct habits of breathing were inculcated; and many 
cases of this dread disease in its incipient stages could be cured 
by simply learning to breathe properly. 

The arrangement of our American courses of study is not 
conducive to economy of energy. Studies are not arranged in 
a psychologically sequential order. The pupil begins a subject 
like algebra, carries it for about a year, considers it "finished," 
and proceeds to geometry, which is "finished" with the same 

1 The Child, p. 42. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 265 

despatch. History, civics, science, and the languages are treated 
in the same kaleidoscopic manner. By such a method no habits 
of mind can really become established. Before one set of brain- 
paths has been developed, the "course-of-study-tinker" appears 
and orders a shifting of the scene. Old tracks are abandoned 
with loss and new ones started at great cost. The Germans 
have been far wiser than we in the arrangement of their curricula 
so as to secure long-continued exercise of the same activity. 
By the spiral plan (considered elsewhere) work is crossed and 
recrossed repeatedly from different view-points. Bonds of asso- 
ciation are multiplied until the thought becomes permanent and 
habitual. While education is to broaden by variety, yet we 
must not fail to understand the importance of deepening and 
mechanizing. This is no less necessary in the most abstract 
association systems than in learning to walk, to button our cloth- 
ing, or in memorizing the multiplication table. It is as uneco- 
nomical psycho-physically never to fix principles, laws, and 
systems of thought, as it would be never to mechanize the 
processes of spelling, writing, talking, bicycling, etc. 

The ability to vary our speech to meet momentary contin- 
gencies, is no less the resultant of habits than if we were bound 
to a fixed form of expression. The fluent adult orator depends 
upon habits no less than the kindergarten child. A larger fund 
and greater powers of inhibition characterize the former than 
the latter. Royce says the reactions of the former are "as 
much established fashions of reaction, dependent upon the physi- 
cal condition and the past training of his higher nervous centres, 
as sneezing and coughing are dependent upon established physi- 
cal dispositions (inherited or acquired) of certain of his lower 
nerve centres." * All our reactions are dependent upon a 
multitude of established nervous habits which enable us to 
make proper adjustments. Generalized functions, though af- 
fording plasticity, are no less habitual. The law of habit in a 
real sense governs higher nervous centres no less than lower. 
"The higher habits have their fixed range of plasticity, the lower 

1 Educational Review, 15 : 212. 



266 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

their fixed routine." A fuller discussion of this will be given 
in connection with the study of volition. 

Fatigue Signs. — There are various, easily interpreted signs 
whereby fatigue may usually be detected. One of the surest 
signs is the decreased efficiency of work. The child works less 
rapidly or makes more mistakes, and the results are less uniform. 
Sometimes the speed is maintained, but at a great cost, as is 
shown by the extra exertion necessary. One who is fatigued 
through long-continued work or play is more apt to be of un- 
stable temper than when fresh and vigorous. One who has 
lived in a family of rollicking, romping, healthy children readily 
recalls their irritability, the instability and the explosiveness, after 
a long day spent at play or after a day of school unrelieved by 
proper relaxation. Their condition following the play is per- 
fectly normal and healthful, but excessive mental work performed 
in poorly ventilated rooms is a potent cause of pathological 
fatigue. Yawning is a characteristic accompaniment of both 
temporary and permanent fatigue. The yawning is produced by 
anaemia of the brain. When one is temporarily fatigued, bored, or 
in a poorly ventilated room, the blood becomes stagnant in the 
small veins of the body. Those who suffer from cerebral anaemia 
yawn continually. The yawning, like stretching the arms, or 
massage, restores the equilibrium of the circulation. When 
fatigued, work requiring fine motor co-ordinations is rendered 
unusually difficult and is inaccurately executed. This is espe- 
cially noticeable in children who are given writing, sewing, 
basketry, or weaving. They do their work poorly, spill ink, 
smear their books, become inattentive, irritable, and fidgety. 
Older persons, when fatigued, feel acutely the strain of work 
when they have to do fine writing, to add long columns of figures, 
or think out a complex train of thought. The results may not 
become as much vitiated as in children because of the greater 
power of inhibition and control. But often the suffering is 
intense in accomplishing results under such conditions. 

In temporary fatigue the psychic effects precede the motor 
disturbances. The attention wavers, irritability ensues, mem- 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 267 

ory is impaired. Of course, in muscular fatigue the pain in the 
muscles precedes any mental warning. In neurasthenia the 
mental functions give evidence of impairment oftentimes before 
the muscular system exhibits lack of co-ordination. Children 
who are pathologically fatigued frequently manifest their condi- 
tion by the knitting of the brows, so that permanent wrinkles 
ensue, fulness under the eyes appears, stammering and stuttering 
often may be observed, and all fine co-ordinations are impaired. 
Miss Holmes studied the effects of fatigue upon school-children 
by comparing their number work when fresh and when fatigued. 
When greatly fatigued, the work was both smaller in quantity 
and fuller of mistakes than when normal. When slightly 
fatigued, various deviations from the normal were noticed. 
Those who can maintain normal speed and accuracy in work 
though fatigued, do so with much greater effort and often pain- 
fully. To persist under such conditions means ultimate serious 
consequences. 1 

Fatigue produces inattention. Children tire easily and most 
of their lessons are apt to be too long. A child of six becomes 
so fatigued with reading or writing in fifteen minutes that the 
attention wanders at the slightest stimulus. It is rare that a 
lecturer on serious subjects can hold the attention of his audience 
more than an hour. 

Among other symptoms of fatigue may be mentioned loss of 
interest, weakened will, and hypersensitivity. In permanent 
fatigue hypersensitivity develops into what is termed nervousness, 
accompanied by the apparently paradoxical decrease of power 
of sense-perception. Unnecessary worry over trifles and easily 
induced fears are frequent symptoms among neurasthenic 
patients. A whole train of phobias is known, such as fear of 
dogs, burglars, and accidents, and fear of failure in every under- 
taking. Diseases of the will are usually resultants of depleted 
nervous energy. Quack doctors flourish because of the thou- 
sands of cases of disordered imagination,, usually induced through 
deep-seated fatigue. A degree further and the hallucinations of 

1 "The Fatigue of a School Hour," Pedagogical Seminary, 3 : 213-234. 



268 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the various stages of insanity appear. Even children frequently 
suffer from hallucinations, especially at night. The night- 
terrors of children are largely troublesome delusions about such 
things as bogey men, black dogs, and policemen. The delusions 
come at the end of the day when the energy of the little ones is 
run down and they are surrounded by the mystery and the super- 
stition connected with the dark. Sometimes these hallucina- 
tions extend into the waking life to haunt and terrify the child. 

In most cases of brain-fag among adults there is a morbid 
fear of disease. Because of the fear of disease and the apparent 
hopelessness of attaining life's ambitions, pessimism overtakes 
the patient, leaving him in the slough of despond. Diseased will 
and unreadiness to accept responsibility follow rapidly. I have 
known several cases where interest and light occupation would 
have been the means of cure, but morbid introspection and fear 
of failure caused the abandonment of everything attempted. 
One man of superlative physical strength, somewhat overworked, 
became so fearful of impending doom that he gave up every 
task he began. The fears of the day increased so at night that 
the approach of darkness was sufficient to throw him into hyster- 
ical crying fits. He talked with me rationally about the foolish- 
ness of it all, but while unrested could not control himself. 1 
Another man of great intellectual acumen and distinction was 
obliged to abandon all work because he could not summdn will- 
power sufficient to calm his imagined fears. 

Children seriously fatigued are apt to be restless at night, to 
grind the teeth, talk in their sleep, or have nightmare. Such 
conditions are frequently consequent upon worry about grades 
and " passing" at school, upon long examinations, too late hours, 
over-excitement about parties, etc. Bad dreams or some terri- 
fying spectacle witnessed by the child often persist, causing a 
useless expenditure of nervous energy. Stories of fairies, gob- 
lins, and spooks may excite the child mind abnormally, causing 
depletion of energy. Even over-indulgence in reading imagina- 

1 Since his complete physical recovery he has become perfectly normal men- 
tally. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 269 

tive stories may prove a source of undue dissipation of energy. 
Emaciation, pallor, and languor are not infrequently observed 
in children and adolescents who do nothing but day-dream. 

Effects of Fatigue on Memory. — Mosso relates that in his own 
case fatigue destroys both attention and memory. The labor 
of ascending Monte Vico and Monte Rosa so affected him that 
he says he remembers nothing that he saw from their summits. 
"My recollection of the incidents of the ascents becomes more 
and more dim in proportion to the height attained. It seems 
that the physical conditions of thought and memory become less 
favorable as the blood is poisoned by the products of fatigue, 
and the energy of the nervous system consumed. This is the 
more singular in my case because I have a good memory for 
places." i His experiences are corroborated by those of other 
mountain-climbers. 

For a time in my teaching experience I gave three consecu- 
tive lectures each day from 9 a. m. to 1 2 M. These classes were 
different sections carrying the same work, and the lectures were 
duplicates. On several occasions I found my memory playing 
me false in the third hour, while I had experienced no difficulty 
during the first hour, and had improved upon the work the sec- 
ond hour. Mosso writes: 2 "Professor Gibelli told me that in 
botanical excursions his memory diminishes as soon as he begins 
to be fatigued, and eventually he becomes unable to recall the 
names of even the commonest plants. Rest very soon causes 
this phenomenon of fatigue to disappear. " " The fatigue ac- 
companying work is not so great when the subject is working 
under the direct stimulus of a definite aim, notwithstanding the 
fact that he has at the same time produced an increase in his 
amount of work." 3 

Experimental Investigations. — Titchener says of fatigue, that 
"In experimentation, it is directly dependent upon the number 
of observations taken in a single series, and is indicated by a 
steady decrease in delicacy of perception and readiness of judg- 

1 Fatigue, p. 200. 2 Ibid., 201. 

1 Wright, Wm. R., Psychological Review, 13 : 23-34. 

\ 
\ 



270 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ment. It is characterized by (i) a weakening of attention, (2) 
a diminished capacity of reproduction, and (3) the prominence 
in consciousness of certain organic sensations." * 

Mosso and several of his associates have studied fatigue ex- 
perimentally with great patience. By means of the ergograph, 
an instrument which allows a single set of muscles, as those of 
the finger, to be exercised, he has studied the progress of fatigue 
in that set of muscles. He has also studied the influence of 
different periods of mental work upon the amount of force 
available for the muscular work upon the ergograph. Smedley 
has used the instrument in connection with his child-study work 
in the Chicago schools. O'Shea has given us some records of 
ergographic experiments arranged by him. 2 

Various investigators, such as Griesbach and Leuba, have 
tested fatigue by means of the gesthesiometer, an instrument de- 
signed to test sensibility to touch and pain. Tests in relation 
to fatigue are made before and after periods of physical or mental 
work. The sensitivity is supposed to be an index of the fatigue. 
Other instruments, such as the plethysmograph and the sphyg- 
mograph, have been extensively used. The former measures 
blood-pressure and the latter pulse-rate. The sphygmograph 
has been used especially by Binet and Henri. Inasmuch as all 
of the physical tests have as yet yielded such meagre results and 
are so difficult to apply in the school-room, the detailed methods 
and results will not be entered upon here. However, while the 
results are meagre they are very suggestive, and consequently a 
few references will be mentioned which will indicate to the 
special student where he may begin if he desires to pursue the 
subject further. 3 

1 Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 

2 O'Shea, Dynamic Factors in Education, chaps. 12, 13, 18. 

3 Mosso, Fatigue, translated by Margaret and W. B. Drummond; Binet et 
Henri, La Fatigue, Intellectuelle; Bergstrom, "An Experimental Study of Some 
of the Conditions of Mental Activity," American Journal of Psychology, 6: 
247-274; Griesbach, Energetik und Hygiene des N erven-Systems in der Schule, 
Miinchen, 1895, 97 pp; Lindley, "A Preliminary Study of Some of the Motor 
Phenomena of Mental Effort," American Journal of Psychology, 8 : 431-493; 
Lukens, "The School Fatigue Question in Germany," Educational Review, 15: 
246-254. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 271 

Sikorsky tested children quantitatively for signs of fatigue 
as evidenced by less efficient work in writing certain material 
from dictation. From one thousand five hundred tests involving 
forty thousand letters, he found that after four or five hours of 
work there was an increase of thirty-three per cent, in the num- 
ber of errors. Burgerstein had children perform examples in 
addition and multiplication during four consecutive periods of 
ten minutes each, separated by five-minute intermissions. He 
found that the number of single additions and multiplications 
was least during the first period, but there were also fewer errors. 
The second period was better in amount of work than the first, 
showing the necessity of becoming " warmed up." The number 
of errors was also larger. The results in the last period were 
better in quantity than in the third, showing a recovery. There 
were more errors, however, than during any other period. 

Laser tested for indications of fatigue by having pupils work 
examples at the beginning of each hour period for five hours. 
His results showed: (1) that the amount of work was least in 
the first hour, (2) that the amount increased up to the third or 
fourth hour, but diminished in the fourth or fifth, (3) the number 
of errors increased up to the fourth hour, but diminished in the 
fifth, (4) the number making no mistakes at all decreased from 
the first to the fifth hour. Hopfner tested a class of forty-six 
boys of nine years by dictating nineteen sentences at intervals 
during a two-hour period of work. There were .9 per cent, of 
errors in the first sentence, which decreased to .6 per cent, in the 
fourth sentence, and then the increase was quite regular up to 
6.4 per cent, in the nineteenth sentence. 1 

Dr. Thorndike discredits most of the theories concerning 
fatigue and the experimental data which have been collected in 
studying the subject. He experimented upon himself, perform- 
ing uninteresting multiplications at the beginning of a day and 
also at the close of the same day, after a long, hard day's work. 

1 The four preceding experiments are reported in Kotelmann's School Hygiene, 
translated by Bergstrom, pp. 173-176. See further, Mosso op. cit., chap. 7; 
Dresslar, "Fatigue," Pedagogical Seminary, 2 : 102-106. 



272 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

He says: 1 "In every case the evening examples represented 
a state of mind which had led the subject to stop work on the 
ground that he was fit to do no more. To start the work of the 
experiment was very irksome and required some exercise of 
determination." His results led him to assert that he could 
do as much work at the close of the day as at the beginning and 
that "we can feel mentally fatigued without being so." He 
tested school-children in a similar manner and concluded that 
their power of actually doing work at the close of the day is as 
great as at the beginning. He says that although the children 
said that "they were tired in the late hours, and thought that 
they couldn't work nearly as well, yet these same children did 
do just as well in the tests given." He further maintains 2 that 
his results "prove that the work in the case of the schools tested 
did not decrease one jot or tittle the ability of the scholars to do 
mental work." He believes that "The great burden of the child 
(and of many of us grown children) is not doing things that are 
hard, or that hurt, but doing things that are stupid and sicken- 
ing and without worth to us." He prescribes "good teaching" 
as a remedy for decreased work apparently due to fatigue, 
believing that it would cure 90 per cent, of all cases. 

Undoubtedly much fatigue is purely imaginary, as Dr. 
Thorndike suggests. But he has evidently overlooked a very 
vital point concerning many cases. Even though as much 
work is done at the close of a long work period, it is done, as he 
admits, under the feeling of fatigue and with great effort. What 
causes the feeling of discomfort or fatigue? Why the extra 
effort necessary ? It is the exhausted or disturbed condition of 
the nerve-cells. The feeling of discomfort is the signal that 
danger will ensue unless the signal is heeded. I frequently close 
an hour's public address with greater activity than I began it. 
My voice is stronger, steadier, my sentences smoother, and my 
ideas readier. But as soon as the lecture closes I feel all the 
effects of overwork and exhaustion. My voice becomes so husky 

1 Psychological Review, 7 : 469, 4S1. 

2 Ibid., pp. 547, 570. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 273 

that I lose control of it and can scarcely speak aloud, I feel 
limp in body, and can only feel comfortable by lying down at 
once. Sometimes my sleep is disturbed, and I feel aches and 
pains. Now, what is this condition if not fatigue? 

Periods of Work and Rest. — No absolute rules can be laid 
down with reference to periods of work and rest, because there 
are such enormous individual differences in this as in other 
characteristics. Some persons can walk only a short distance 
without, great fatigue, while others can tramp all day without 
rest or experiencing fatigue. Some can do continuous, heavy 
physical work, but only at a slow pace, while others work by 
spurts and then require rest. Similar conditions obtain in 
mental work. Some men work from fourteen to sixteen hours 
a day the year round without a vacation, while .others seem 
never to be at work but really accomplish astonishing results 
because of the intensity while occupied. University students 
vary greatly in their methods and powers of mental work. One 
spends as much energy, and as effectively, in fifteen minutes as 
another in two hours. The former, however, has to learn to 
rest and vary his work. 

It is often maintained that during the morning hours far 
more work can be accomplished than at any other period of the 
day. It is assumed that the night-time per se is responsible 
for the fatigued condition and the morning hour for the abundant 
vigor. According to these assumptions, then, would not the 
day-time hours be the best for invigoration through sleep ? It is 
doubtless true that the best work is usually accomplished with 
the least effort in the morning, after a night's refreshing sleep. 
But it is also probably true that such is the case because of 
the sleep, rest, and recuperation rather than because of the 
time of day. 

The relations of periods of work to periods of rest, sleep, and 
times of eating are much more determinative of fatigue than 
is the time of day. Those who work nights say that they can 
work equally as well at night as during the day. Some students 
and writers do their main work early in the day — sometimes 



274 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

before breakfast. But that is largely a matter of personal 
habit. Others do their very best brain-work at night — between 
eight and twelve or one o'clock. The nervous system and the 
mind become habituated through custom to functioning in certain 
ways at certain times and laws become established. Just as we 
fall asleep after lunch almost in spite of ourselves if we have 
become accustomed to it; just as we waken in almost exactly 
twenty minutes if that has been the allotted time; so the mind 
is ready to work with a given momentum and upon given prob- 
lems at certain definite periods. Because of habituation of at- 
tention during the day-time to my routine work and to devotion 
of my hours of lamplight to writing and new work, I find that it is 
not easy to interchange. If I seat myself during the day-time 
to write an article, dozens of routine matters come unbidden 
to my attention and it seems as if my mind will not work freely 
upon the new matter until the accustomed hour. Of course, 
at that later hour the disturbing factors of the day are no 
longer present; the bright sunshine, the beautiful flowers, or 
the friendly fireside chat no longer command attention. But 
as I have repeatedly analyzed the case, it seems to me as if my 
whole make-up were more ready for particular kinds of activ- 
ities at certain times, previously determined by habituation 
through experience. 

According to our habits of eating and sleeping, it is true that 
the best hours for school-children are in the morning from about 
eight to eleven. This is especially true if a light, though nutri- 
tious, breakfast follows eight or nine hours of refreshing sleep. 
The hour preceding lunch, usually from eleven to twelve, is a 
poor hour, because of the need of nourishment and because of 
the previous work. The hour immediately following lunch is 
also a poor hour for work, because the blood is drawn away 
from the head to the stomach to promote digestion. The hours 
from two to six are favorable for work, although they may not 
be so good as the morning hours. This is true only because 
they are farther away from a period of refreshing sleep, because 
the funds of nervous energy are more nearly run down, and 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 275 

because of the cumulative effects of the toxins formed by exer- 
cise. But, as stated above, whether the brain and mind act 
readily or sluggishly depends much upon habit. It is stated by 
Frank G. Carpenter that Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the great 
inventor, has done most of his thinking after dark, finding that 
his mind works better when all is quiet. He considers the 
hours from midnight to four o'clock as the preferred time. 
During the summer months he seldom goes to sleep before dawn 
and his hours for sleep are usually from four to eleven in the 
morning. His afternoons are devoted to business and social 
engagements and his nights to scientific experiments. He main- 
tains that this plan is in no wise injurious to his health and he 
prefers these hours instead of daylight for work. "Indeed," 
says Carpenter, "night and day are much the same to him, and 
when he is especially interested in some of his experiments he 
goes many hours without sleep, working on far into the day and 
then sleeping for hours at a stretch to make up." * Edison is 
said to utilize the night hours almost as much as the day. It 
would be easy to multiply cases to show that habit and the 
personal equation are very large factors in questions of work 
and fatigue. 

Daily School Program. — The daily program of the school 
should be so arranged as to produce a minimum degree of fatigue 
and also to place the most arduous occupations at the period 
of the day when pupils are freshest and most able to resist fatigue. 
From the nature of the subjects, mathematics, languages, gram- 
mar, any memoriter work, or any requiring long trains of 
ideas to be held in mind, are most fatiguing. It is not always 
the work requiring greatest ingenuity or depth of thought that 
tires most. The psychologist obliged to add long columns of 
figures used in his experiments finds the adding much more 
fatiguing than the more profound thinking. The mathemati- 
cian even finds adding columns more fatiguing than handling 
complex equations. Practice will, of course, reduce the fatigue 
in adding. But, in general, any work requiring a prolonged un- 

1 Chicago Record-Herald, September 2, 1906. 



276 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

broken chain of associations is fatiguing until paths of associa- 
tion become "grooved" as it were, i. e., until habits are formed. 

Another caution which should be thrown out is against 
too much and too difficult home work. If pupils below the 
high school are diligent through five or six hours a day five 
days in the week, little home work should be exacted, especially 
work of a difficult nature. It is almost criminal to require ten- 
year-olds to work out their arithmetic lessons at night especially 
when the teacher makes himself a lesson-hearer instead of a 
teacher. (And I am sorry to admit that thousands of our 
teachers are mere monitors who hear children recite.) If chil- 
dren are given any home occupations, they should be merely 
mechanical operations relating to principles thoroughly de- 
veloped in class, or some light and absorbingly interesting work. 
The Germans give only work which is for the purpose of Ergan- 
zung oder Einpragung (widening work already learned or im- 
pressing principles through application). The best kind of 
subjects for home work would be literature, biography, the 
study of history, travel, or observations of natural phenomena 
requiring easily performed experiments, or excursions. What a 
wealth of observations might be made, and materials collected, 
by going in groups with the teacher, or even alone. All the 
fields of natural science, agriculture, history, geography, civics, 
and others, are open. The subjects are too often barren just 
because they lack this observational phase. For work by the 
fireside the literature of the ages offers tempting excursions. 
Instead of opening up this field, teachers too often assign for 
home work abstract forms and formulas to be mumbled over. 
If such work is mastered it is usually by the help of the parents. 

Pupils should not be allowed to sit for unduly long periods. 
The monotony causes strain and fatigue of certain parts which 
affect the whole body and the mind as well. Undue tension 
should never ensue through excessive formalism. Ease of 
posture and liberty of movement should always be allowed, 
to the limits consistent with reasonable order. I know of 
schools where both pupils and teachers are continuously keyed 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 277 

to the breaking-point over finicky matters of order. Demerits 
are given if a pencil drops, a pupil glances up, looks out of a 
window, or turns around. The pupils live in mortal dread of 
"sinning" and incurring the wrath of the hypercritical monarch. 
Watch any company of adults, and well-behaved adults too, 
and see if they comport themselves at lectures, church, or 
teachers' meetings as the children are commanded to at school. 

The German plan of allowing an intermission between periods 
is commendable. It should, however, be a period of complete 
relaxation, and not one devoted to calisthenics or formal march- 
ings. It is usual in American schools not to give an interim 
between classes, and to preserve strict silence while in class and 
also while passing between classes. This is a mistake. Pro- 
fessor Ensign, for many years an exceedingly successful princi- 
pal of the Council Bluffs, Iowa, high school, made it a practice 
to encourage chatting, visiting, laughter, and general relaxation 
while passing to and from classes. By this means the pupils 
drafted off pent-up, superfluous energies, equilibrium was re- 
stored, more cheerful feelings engendered, and much better 
work secured. Martinet discipline causes the unnatural in- 
hibition of many automatisms and reflexes. This repression 
produces worry, fidgetiness, and a leakage of nervous energy. 

I firmly believe that the majority of all the problems of disci- 
pline arise from the unnatural repression to which pupils find 
themselves subjected. The long rows of seats and desks in 
which the pupils must remain almost as immovable as wooden 
soldiers, with prohibitions against turning around, communi- 
cating, leaving seats, dropping things, or even turning away 
from books to rest the eyes, all tend to produce rebellious feelings 
and pent-up energies which must be given a chance to secure 
relief by some means or other. The whole plan of the "study 
period" has been wrought out without a knowledge of the first 
principles of psycho-neural laws and in every direction counter 
to them. 

Recuperation. — When the meaning of fatigue and its causes 
have been set forth, the means of treatment and relief appear 



278 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

plain. The work must cease and some means be employed to 
restore the circulation. If a particular organ or part has be- 
come fatigued through congestion, this condition must be re- 
lieved, the part irrigated with rich nutriment, and the equilibrium 
restored. If fatigue has resulted from exhaustion of nervous 
or muscular energy, cessation of the work is necessary, and rest, 
sleep, or nourishment must restore the worn-out portion. Mosso 
claims that the store of energy is not highly specialized, but 
rather general, and hence nervous fatigue means fatigue all over. 

The proverbial statement that a change of work is as good 
as a rest is certainly incorrect when applied to cases of fatigue 
due to depleted energies. The teacher who requires the child 
wearied with arithmetic to turn to grammar, simply because it 
is different, is making a great blunder if restoration of energy 
is expected to result. The blunder is equally egregious when 
gymnastics and military exercises are substituted. More teachers 
are ignorant on this point than on the preceding. To succeed 
in gymnastics demands attention and will-power of a high de- 
gree, and brain energy is depleted as rapidly as in the study of 
mathematics. Nothing but rest, nutrition, and complete relaxa- 
tion will suffice. It was a sorry day when indoor calisthenics 
were substituted for absolute free play and relaxation out in the 
open. The muscular exercise, instead of relieving the cerebral 
fatigue, adds another kind of work equally fatiguing. For the 
purpose of relieving fatigue produced through congestion, free 
play and the old-fashioned recess have never been equalled. 

A right understanding of fatigue will dispel the idea that 
students who engage in long hours of hard manual labor are 
thereby made the better students, and will give a more rational 
view of athletics and sports. Foot-ball enthusiasts are apt to 
advance the specious argument that the severe and prolonged 
physical exercise promotes mental vigor and increases the 
amount and improves the quality of mental work. That is 
absolutely untrue. The man who "works" several hours daily 
"playing" in severe athletic contests has a lessened, rather than 
an increased, quantity of brain energy at his disposal. The 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 279 

fact that he sometimes attends both to studies and team work 
successfully is due not to the increased efficiency resulting from 
athletics, but to the possession at the outset of an unusual com- 
bination of mental and physical qualities. 

Likewise the students who support themselves by excessive 
manual labor or night work usually have difficulty in refraining 
from napping in class. Believing in the popular superstition 
that hard physical work promotes intellectual activity, as a 
student I tried to keep up my studies during the summers on 
the farm. I found farm work and efficient study incompatible, 
and at that time felt a secret twinge of conscience for my supposed 
lack of moral fibre. I could neither accomplish much study 
nor maintain an interest in the details, although I was, in general, 
always interested in study. I have later felt a sense of relief 
in knowing that I was not much of a sinner after all. Of course, 
I might feel some approbation had I been able to overcome 
more of my racial tendencies and achieve results such as are 
credited to the heroes who worked hard all day and then labored 
over their books far into the night by aid of the pine fagot or 
the tallow dip. But, as I am no blind hero-worshipper and am 
a scientific sceptic, the profane question will occasionally pop 
up unbidden as to whether those heroes really did work many 
nights and whether they did really read much Greek that way ? 
Their accomplishments in that line may have been somewhat 
like those of our venerated grandparents in spelling, writing, and 
ciphering. Occasionally an authentic document is made avail- 
able by which we may compare their renown and their actual 
achievements. 

O'Shea remarks 1 that: "Brain workers will probably be 
benefited more by activities requiring the greater use of the 
fundamental than of the peripheral muscles. Gymnastics and 
games, then, should not require too exact and delicate co- 
ordinations, since it would seem that student life really demands 
enough of this sort of thing in the prosecution of studies. The 

1 "Aspects of Mental Economy": Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 
p. 162. 



2 8o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

cerebral areas controlling the peripheral muscles are doubtless 
involved in thinking, and it is desirable that our recreation should 
relieve these areas from active exercise while calling others into 
play. Again, it seems to me especially desirable that our amuse- 
ments should engage the muscles principally rather than the 
mind. Cards, checkers, authors, and the like must be poorly 
suited to the needs of those who use their heads constantly in 
their regular employments. ... A student's life economically 
planned would aim to expend in study all of the energies which 
should be devoted to intellectual activities, while recreation 
would involve motor activities almost wholly." 

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano. — The first and foremost great 
aim of mental dietetics that should be impressed early and often 
is that one long ago stated by Juvenal, viz.: Mens sana in 
corpore sano. Every parent and every teacher should under- 
stand that the first business of the child is to become a good 
animal. Childhood years should be largely vegetative. The 
child's primal inheritance is physical. Big lungs, firm muscles, 
an elastic step, ruddy cheeks, scintillating unspectacled eyes, 
and senses alert at the close of youth are priceless possessions, 
with which a knowledge of algebraic formulas, a foreign language 
or two, or a few dates in history are not to be compared. 

Permanent Fatigue. — "It may be true that that age (forty) 
marks in intellectual men usually a transition or the point where 
the accumulated losses which have been occurring from birth 
on reveal their effects clearly, but in the great majority of men 
comparative mental fixity surely occurs at a much earlier period. 
If you will allow me to wander for a moment from the strict 
discussion of our immediate theme, I should like to refer to 
what may be called the theory of permanent mental fatigue. 
The organic changes which go on in the nervous system diminish 
its pliability and there comes a time when the individual finds 
it exceedingly difficult to bring his mind into any unaccustomed 
form of activity. How completely we are mastered by this 
difficulty is often hidden, I believe, from our recognition and 
from that of our friends, because we have acquired certain habits 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 281 

of activity which we are able to keep up, but we are not able 
without ever-increasing difficulty to turn to new forms of mental 
activity, or in other words, to learn new things. When we grow 
old we may still continue to do well the kind of thing which we 
have learned to do, whether it be paying out bills at a bank or 
paying out a particular set of scientific ideas to a class of students. 
If we try to overstep the limits of our acquired expertness we 
find that we are held up by this sense of permanent mental 
fatigue. Usually this condition comes about gradually, but I 
have known, as I presume you all have, several cases in which 
it has appeared suddenly, where a man who up to a certain 
time was fond of mental exertion suddenly ceased to be men- 
tally active. We have probable illustrations of this in the careers 
of well-known scientific men. I think the theory of permanent 
mental fatigue, in connection with the theory of gradual decline 
. . . could be usefully developed and might well be utilized 
by the psychologists in their studies." * 

Modern High-Pressure System. — With the increase of man's 
potentialities, we must also reckon with the fact of the multiplied 
ways of inciting and exciting to depletion of powers. As an 
illustration let us note the excessive stimulation to which the 
eye is subjected. In our present civilization we have come to 
depend more and more upon vision. The strain upon the eye 
in gaining a knowledge of the objective realities about us has 
been increased a thousand-fold by modern modes of travel. In 
addition we must use the eye to interpret language symbols 
about myriads of things inaccessible to personal inspection. 
Primitive man had only a narrow range of things to see, and 
those usually at some distance. Hence he knew not eye-strain 
resulting from the microscopic scrutiny of a vast ever-changing, 
kaleidoscopic scene. Formerly man could deliberate in seeing 
the few things within his range. But now he becomes a globe- 
trotter, compacting into a few weeks the view of scores of nations, 
vast expanses of country, the collections of ages, and the madden- 
ing activities of the heterogeneous throng. In a week's jaunt 

1 Minot, Age, Growth, and Death, pp. 245-246. 



282 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

visiting a world's fair, present-day man sees more, hears more, 
than was possible in a whole life, a century ago. Besides these 
activities the eye must do duty in reading the twenty-four-page 
daily, the forty-eight-page Sunday edition, scanning a half- 
dozen weeklies, and going through a cartload of magazines, to 
say nothing of all the latest books which one is supposed to 
read. 

The ear is equally assailed with the ceaseless hum of voices, 
door-bells, and telephone calls, the whir of the trolley, the shriek 
and clang of the locomotive, the maddening grind of the sleeping- 
car or the twin-screw steamer upon which we take our vacation 
tours, the deafening roar of the factory, the clatter of galloping 
hoofs and the rattle of wheels over paved streets. Even at night 
we must be assailed — business must not stand still — goods must 
be sent by return mail, limited trains must outdo other limiteds, 
and everywhere new "records" must be established. Even on 
Sunday we are not permitted to listen to restful sermons — they 
must be such as to give rise to glaring headlines and the music 
must be of ear-splitting pitch. 

Significance of Fatigue in Heredity. — The question of fatigue 
is of vast importance, not only having a relation to the arrange- 
ment of the daily program, to the amount of work, periods 
of rest and recreation, but in a still larger way affecting the 
whole life of a people. Habits of life which produce permanent 
fatigue of great numbers of people may mean the loss of place 
and power, or even the extinction of nations. Great numbers 
of people in all civilized countries have been thoroughly aroused 
by the question, many discussions have ensued, and much 
literature has been produced. The Uberbur dung sf rage became 
a national question in Germany a few years ago. As early as 
1886 the Paris Academy of Medicine ascribed a long list of 
children's diseases to the fatigue incident to school life. Physi- 
cians in our own country have sounded a warning not only 
against over-pressure in schools but against all forms of headlong 
rush and over-excitement which seem to be over-stimulating and 
devitalizing our American life. " Americanitis" may be or may 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 283 

become more than a jest. Hereditary "laziness" would not be 
an impossible, but a probable, ultimate consequence of a few- 
generations of living at an exhausting pace. 

We are wont to think of the invention of machinery as reliev- 
ing many from toil and fatigue. Mosso comments upon this 
idea in a way which certainly suggests the necessity of regulating 
and reducing the hours of enslaving toil from tending certain 
kinds of machinery. He writes: 1 "One very quickly per- 
ceives, however, that those machines are not made to lessen 
human fatigue, as poets were wont to dream. The velocity of 
the flying wheels, the whirling of the hammers, and the furious 
speed at which everything moves, these things tell us that time 
is an important factor in the progress of industry, and that 
here in the factory the activity of the workers must conquer the 
forces of nature. Beside these roaring machines are seen half- 
naked men, covered with sweat, hurriedly pursuing enormous 
weights, which whirl round as if a mysterious hand were raising 
them. The hiss of the steam, the rattling of the pulleys, the 
shaking of the joints, the snorting of these gigantic automata, 
all warn us that they are inexorable in their motion, that man is 
condemned to follow them without a moment's rest, because 
every minute wasted consumes time which is worth money, 
seeing that it renders useless the fuel and the movement of 
these colossi. The least distraction, the least mistake may 
drag the workers beneath the grinding teeth of the wheels; and 
the imagination recoils horror-struck before the mutilations, the 
deaths, with which these monsters punish the slightest careless- 
ness, the slightest hesitation on the part of those who direct 
them." All this produces a tension and strain which must 
eventually sap the very life-energy from the strongest and con- 
tribute to race deterioration. 2 

Health of School-Children. — Paul wrote: "What? know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in 

1 Fatigue, p. 171. 

2 See Bulletin 30 of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health. Being 
a Report on National Vitality, prepared by Prof. Irving Fisher, pp. 44-48. 



284 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

you?" * So well established is the idea that a sound mind can 
be developed only in a sound body, that very properly a large 
share of attention is devoted to the consideration of the health 
of school-children. Splendid efforts have been made to provide 
commodious buildings, hygienically heated, lighted, and venti- 
lated. In enlightened communities the school-house site is 
chosen in the most healthful location possible, and the grounds 
are ample for plays, sports, and recreations. Athletics, games, 
out-door exercises, and gymnasium work are encouraged, utilized 
to correct defective or abnormal tendencies, and in manifold 
ways made to contribute to bodily tone and vigor as well as to 
provide incentives for school attendance. 

Through the awakening of the public to a consciousness of 
the importance of bodily health, not only because of its effect 
upon the individual, but on account of its far-reaching racial 
effects, many reforms in school conditions are being secured. 
Buildings are being constructed in accordance with the best ideas 
of heating, lighting, plumbing, color of walls, etc. Greater 
precautions are taken to secure building-sites on well-drained 
ground, removed from the disturbing noises and dangers in 
congested districts. Play-grounds are no longer considered lux- 
uries by enlightened citizens. In New York costly mercantile 
buildings in the heart of the most thickly populated districts are 
torn down to make room for play-grounds. The gymnasium 
is coming to be considered as necessary as the library or the 
laboratory. School baths are being provided at public expense, 
and the paternalism of the state goes so far in some cases as to 
require the pupils to take them. Physical culture is given a 
regular place in the required list of exercises in many schools 
and colleges. The diet and nutrition of school-children is 
properly made an item of consideration. The mid-day lunch 
is often furnished on the school premises and is prepared ac- 
cording to the most hygienic principles. In not a few instances 
the public provides food for indigent children who come to school 
so ill nourished that effective mental work is an impossibility. 

1 1 Cor. 6 : 19. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 285 

Dr. Hall has said: * "A ton of knowledge bought at the cost 
of an ounce of health, which is the most ancient and precious 
form of wealth and worth, costs more than its value. Better 
Tolstoi's kind of liberty, or the old knightly contempt of pen 
and book work as the knack of craven, thin-blooded clerks, 
better idyllic ignorance of even the invention of Cadmus, if the 
worst that the modern school now causes must be taken in 
order to get the best it has to give. Sooner or later everything 
pertaining to education, from the site of the building to the 
contents of every text-book, and the methods of each branch of 
study, must be scrutinized with all the care and detail at the 
command of scientific pedagogy and judged from the stand-point 
of health. What shall a child give in exchange for his health, 
or what shall it profit a child if he gain the whole world of 
knowledge and lose his own health ?" 

Medical Inspection of Schools. — Medical inspection of schools 
should become universal. The hygienic conditions of the sur- 
roundings under which children work and play should be regu- 
larly inspected. The frequent, appalling consequences of un- 
necessary contagion should be checked. Where regular physi- 
cians have been employed the wisdom of the measure has been 
demonstrated. With the congestion of population in cities the 
need for medical inspection of schools becomes greater. Statis- 
tics are almost overwhelming in the appeal they make to us 
for the medical inspection of schools. During the year 1895, in 
Boston, the medical inspector made 16,790 examinations. Of 
those examined, 10,737 were really ill. This indicates that 
not many needless examinations were conducted. Among those 
examined, 2,041 were too ill to remain even for the day. The 
number of cases of contagious diseases which should have been 
recognized at home was something appalling. There were 77 
cases of diphtheria, 28 of scarlet fever, 47 of scabies, 116 of 
measles, 33 of whooping cough, 28 of chicken-pox, 47 of mumps, 
8 of congenital syphilis. The results of inspection in Chicago 
revealed similar conditions. During the four months ending 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, 2 : 7. 



286 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

April 30, 1 goo, there were 76,805 examinations made, and 
4,539 pupils were excluded from school. Of these 170 were 
afflicted with diphtheria; scarlet fever claimed 401; measles, 
648; whooping cough, 55; chicken-pox, 670; tonsilitis, 689; 
mumps, 1,160; purulent sore eyes, 55; impetigo, 193; pedicu- 
losis, 241; ringworm, 76; eczema, 48; other diseases, 133. 

"In the Chicago schools, during the first six months of this 
year (1909), 249,840 children were examined, and 32,159 were 
temporarily excluded because of contagious diseases. There 
were 72,061 examined for physical defects, and nearly 38,000— - 
more than one-half — were found defective — the teeth were de- 
fective in more than 26,000 (1 in every 3) ; the tonsils in more 
than 17,000 (1 in every 4); the vision in nearly 14,000 (1 in 
every 5), etc." l 

And all the children thus afflicted were sitting by the side of 
other children, spreading their contagion broadcast! All were 
sent by their parents, who, according to extreme individualists, 
should not have their rights interfered with. If public investi- 
gation of school conditions and the isolation of such cases means 
paternalism, then give us more, yea, infinitely more paternalism! 
The great prevalence of .physical and moral contagion to 
which little children are exposed in our public schools makes 
thinking parents hesitate before sending their children where 
any day they may become inoculated with germs that may 
result in physical or moral diseases of the most loathsome kind. 
The great number of epidemics of measles, scarlet fever, mumps, 
whooping cough, etc., that annually find their centre of dissemi- 
nation in a school-room, where the germs have been carried 
by children from homes oftentimes entirely ignorant of and in- 
different to the simplest laws of health, should not fail to impress 
us with the desirability of checking them. If Edward Bok's 
statements are true, and they are doubtless true in the main, 
that fifty thousand children are annually made nervous wrecks, 
and if parents are continually lamenting the nervous break- 
downs of their children, there is certainly cause for alarm. 

1 Votaw, "Moral Training in the Public Schools," Biblical World, 34 : 298. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 287 

While Mr. Bok is wrong in charging all to the public schools, 
he is undoubtedly correct as to results. The schools are not 
primarily to blame for the nervous prostrations and early deaths 
from consumption. "The sins of the fathers," dissipation of 
energy in late parties, insufficient sleep, insufficient and improper 
food, lack of exercise, long hours at the piano instead of in the 
kitchen or at play, the curses imposed by fashionable but 
murderous costume, the deadly microbes gathered up and 
carried home by the mother's ultra-fashionable skirts sweeping 
our filthy sidewalks, the demands made by foolish parents that 
children constitutionally weak do all that the stronger neighbor 
children do, the outside music, the extra work in the store, these 
and many other causes for which parents themselves are to 
blame are more frequently the cause of pulmonary diseases and 
nervous collapse. But setting aside the causes, the distressing 
fact remains that these pitiable cases are in school, and many 
parents have neither the knowledge nor the good sense to pre- 
vent the blighting conditions nor to remedy the evils when under 
way. It then remains for the school, as a guardian and pro- 
moter of manhood and womanhood, to protect against evil 
tendencies and combat disease and contagion. 

In villages and small towns the school physician might be the 
health officer of the town. Such a position would give him 
something of exceeding importance to do. Instead of going 
around town tacking up diphtheria and scarlet-fever signs 
after the disease had been spread broadcast and the schools 
closed for a month's vacation, he could be extremely useful in 
preventing the spread of disease. By combining the duties of 
the health officer and the school inspector very little additional 
cost would be involved, and no great amount of persuasion 
would be necessary to inaugurate the plan. The plan is feasible 
because it has been tried successfully. Large cities can well 
afford to employ one or more experts to devote all their time to 
the psycho-pathological work. Chicago employs an expert con- 
sulting psychologist, besides fifty or more physicians who devote 
part of their time to these extremely important preventive and 



288 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

alleviative measures. In the future — which I believe is dawn- 
ing — let us hope that the appropriations for reformatories and 
reformatory measures may be materially diminished, while for 
formative and preventive measures they may be infinitely in- 
creased. 

There is a world-wide movement to secure medical inspection 
of schools and better school sanitation. European countries, 
especially Switzerland, have led in this altruistic movement. 
However: "At present medical inspection is the exception, rather 
than the rule. Only 70 cities in the United States, outside of 
Massachusetts, and 32 cities and 321 towns in Massachusetts, 
have systems more or less complete. New York employs 150 
physicians, who visit each public school once a day to examine 
children set aside for that purpose by the teacher. In Provi- 
dence a fresh-air school for children suffering from tuberculosis 
has been established." 1 

In Chicago, during the first six months of the year 1909, "the 
school nurses have been busy looking after the diseased or 
defective pupils. They have visited the homes of 45,000 pupils, 
to arrange that the children may be properly taken care of, and 
under the direction of physicians have actually treated more 
than 23,000 children. The school authorities find that many 
parents do not give attention and care to the health of the 
children — their defects of teeth, vision, hearing, breathing, or 
nutrition are neglected, and as a consequence the children are 
left to struggle along with severe handicaps if not with actual 
pain. So the public schools have assumed the enormous task 
of securing health for as many of the boys and girls as possible. 
This means also that the school buildings and the methods of 
instruction shall be in the best sense hygienic, and that the pupils 
as they progress through the school years shall be taught health 
in an all-round and effective way. The physical health which 
is thus built up makes for higher attainment both intellectually 
and morally." 2 

Wisher, op. cit., p. 8. 
2 Votaw, loc. cit. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 289 

The Inflexible Graded System. — One point remains to be 
noted. If these nervous breakdowns accompanying school work 
are to be successfully resisted, the school grade in its extreme 
inflexibility must go. Parents will always want their John and 
Mary to be at exactly the same point in their work and to carry 
exactly the same amount of work as their neighbor's John and 
Mary. Custom is a mighty force which rules the world. What 
"they" do, what "they" say, are among the most constantly 
operative stimuli in an adult's life. Now if the superintendent 
and school physician could say that John should rest for three 
weeks or that he should take only two of the four studies, which 
he could do if the grades were not the gods to be appeased; if 
John could graduate a few weeks later when he individually 
had completed the work, he could work along calmly and 
without detriment. The school grade, so dear to the mechanical 
teacher, is a Juggernaut under whose ever-grinding wheels are 
annually crushed thousands of innocent children whose cries 
go up to heaven in a wail against this wholesale sacrifice of life 
and individuality. 

Sleep and Efficiency. — Sleep is an important factor in the 
development of the child and the youth, to which inadequate 
consideration has been given by parents. Dr. Hall has said 
that no child should be allowed to go to school without having 
had nine hours of sleep and a good breakfast. In the average 
home little attention is given to the amount of sleep of the 
children, and the conditions under which it is taken. Without 
doubt a large percentage of the cases of nervous breakdowns 
reported among high-school pupils could be traced to irregular, 
inadequate, and unrefreshing sleep. Dr. Francis Warner, 1 a 
noted authority on child study and on nervous diseases, records 
with approval the following tabulation furnished by Dr. Clement 
Dukes of the desirable amounts of work and sleep for the differ- 
ent ages of childhood and youth: 

1 The Nervous System of the Child, p. 1 24. 



290 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



table Showing desirable number of hours of work and 
sleep at different ages 



AGE 


HOURS OF WORK PER 


HOURS OF SLEEP PER 


WEEK 


NIGHT 


5-6 


6 


I3l 


6-7 


9 


13 


7-8 


12 


12$ 


8-9 


i5 


12 


9-10 


20 


11* 


11-12 


25 


11 


I3 _I 4 


35 


10 


14-15 


40 


9i 


I5-I7 


45 


9 


17-19 


5° 


8* 






&. 



Defective Eyesight. — So important are the senses of sight and 
hearing in the acquisition of knowledge and so frequently are 
these senses impaired, that a special brief section will be devoted 
to each. References will be given for the guidance of those who 
need to investigate further. Persons blessed with sight gain a 
vast range of ideas which are absolutely denied to the blind. 
Primarily all our ideas of light and darkness, colors and shades, 
with all that these mean in acquiring real ideas of the world 
about us, and all our ideas of drawing and painting, are depend- 
ent upon sight. Form and size also are largely determined by 
visual signs. Helen Keller, blind through life, can never know 
color, can never understand painting and drawing as the seeing 
do. All her ideas of form and size are gained through touch, and 
color can be only a word with her. Newspaper accounts have 
credited her with real knowledge of light and color, but this 
is all the fiction of some newspaper writer's inexact thinking. 
It is scarcely necessary even to suggest the importance of good 
sight as a means of knowledge getting and of enjoyment. Every 
one who sees appreciates it in a vague way, but only those who 
have become blind after experiencing the advantages and joys 
of sight really appreciate it to the full limit. Not only are the 
blind deprived of certain cardinal facts, but their whole brain 
and mental development suffer therefrom. The lobe of sight 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 291 

in the brain of Laura Bridgman was found to be much thinner 
and less well developed than the other lobes of her brain, and less 
developed than the corresponding lobes in normal individuals. 

Recent investigations have revealed the fact that many pupils 
fail to do good work because of defective sense-organs. Many 
persons are afflicted with defective eyesight who are not aware 
of it. Color-blindness is seldom discerned by the one afflicted 
until tested. Having never known any different perception of 
the world it seems to him the natural condition. Who can tell 
the number of railroad wrecks, due to ignorance of this defect, 
which occurred before scientific tests were applied ? While the 
defect causes no special inconvenience in ordinary pursuits, 
how absolutely essential it is in railroading! In occupations 
such as painting, millinery, dressmaking, selection of dry goods, 
etc., many failures might be traced to color-blindness. Because 
of other visual defects, how many children have been dubbed 
dunces in reading when they miscalled words or were slow in 
making out new words ? The near-sighted child fails to see the 
blackboard and misses much that children with normal vision 
get. Headaches, nervous irritability, and many other defects 
are often due to astigmatism, weak eye muscles, or other sense 
defects. A case came to my notice recently of a senior girl in 
the high school who was said to be threatened with nervous 
prostration. Her eyes were examined, a bad case of astigma- 
tism discerned, glasses fitted, and the girl returned to school in 
the best of health. 

Prevalence of Defects. — Defective vision is undoubtedly much 
more prevalent among the uneducated than some suppose. 
Ordinary occupations do not reveal the defects and tests are not 
made, hence we erroneously assume that the defects do not 
exist. But it is also true that civilization is making demands 
upon the eye which tend to produce deterioration. This is 
especially true because hygienic laws are unknown or unheeded. 
Badly lighted homes, school-houses, and business establish- 
ments are responsible for much suffering which the observance 
of hygienic conditions would obviate. School life is particu- 
larly hard on the eyesight. Cohn states that in twenty-fout 



292 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



gymnasien and realschulen, containing nearly ten thousand 
pupils, in sexta (the lowest class), twenty- two per cent, were 
myopic, while in prima (the highest class), fifty-eight per cent, 
were afflicted. 

Kotelmann says: 1 "Shortsightedness is a defect developed 
by civilization, since it is never found among savage tribes. I 
have examined a great many Lapps, Calmucks, Patagonians, 
Nubians, Somali, and Singhalese, but I have never found a 
single near-sighted person, either among the children or the 
adults. Myopia did not exist in New Zealand till it appeared 
among the natives after the introduction of civilization." 
Myopia, as previously noted, is more prevalent among civilized 
peoples than among savages. It also increases from childhood 
to maturity. While much defective eyesight can be directly 
traced to heredity, 2 school work unquestionably is responsible 
for its steady increase with the advancing grades of school life. 
The following table, taken from Kotelmann's School Hygiene, 
represents typical conditions in German gymnasien: 

TABLE SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF CASES OF DEFECTIVE VISION 
IN THE DIFFERENT GRADES OF SOME GERMAN SCHOOLS 



Sexta (lowest) 

Quinta 

Quarta 

Untertertia 

Obertertia 

Untersekunda 

Obersekunda 

Prima 

Oberprima (highest) 



19 
16 

34 
35 
35 

40 
40 
41 
4i 



5 


2 3 


9 


25 


14 


32 


19 


5° 


24 


5° 


34 


58 


40 


58 


43 


47 



5° 47 



16 

20 
20 

5i 

34 
42 

7i 
58 

60 



v 



1 School Hygiene, p. 246; English translation by J. Bergstrom. 
1 Cohn, Hygiene des Auges, p. 278. 



3 rt 

la 



V 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 293 

/ 

Myopia is a condition of the eye in which either the eye- 
ball is too elongated or the lens is too convex. In either case 
the rays of light are brought to a focus in front of the retina. 
Only near objects can be seen distinctly. Concave glasses 
help to correct the defect. 

Tests. — Because of the alarming prevalence of eye defects 
among school children, the teacher should be instructed in 
methods of testing the sight. The purpose is not to assume 
the role of physician, but to discover disturbances and to have 
serious cases reported to the physician. Pronounced defects 
should be readily observed by the alert teacher without the aid 
of specially devised tests. If a pupil squints, habitually holds 
the book too near the face, wrinkles the brow, complains of 
headache, or mispronounces words in reading, trouble may be 
suspected. Such pupils should be watched more closely and 
questioned concerning their own knowledge of the case. More 
accurate tests should be applied in all cases that seem abnormal. 
The simplest test is made by using the Snellen's Test Letters. 
These consist of letters of varying sizes (see illustration below), 
which should be plainly seen by the normal eye at the distances 
indicated on the cards. 1 

Snellen's test letters 

□ O B R K 5 6 

Should be seen easily by the normal eye at a distance of about three metres 

or ten feet. 

Still better than the test letters are the Cohn Test Types, of 
which the accompanying are illustrations. These are especially 
desirable because with letters or figures much guessing is possi- 
ble: A single element of a letter or figure even indistinctly 
seen may be sufficient to suggest the entire character. With 
Cohn's types no guessing is possible, and, moreover, children 
who are unable to read may be tested: 

1 These cards are inexpensive and may be secured at the Mcintosh Battery 
and Optical Company, 521-531 Wabash Ave., Chicago. 






294 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

cohn's test types 

e 3 m m lit e iii 

Should be seen easily by the normal eye at a distance of about five metres or 

sixteen feet. 

The mechanical make-up of books is a very important con- 
sideration. Only the plainest type should be used. The letters 
should be large enough to be easily seen, and the spacing between 
letters and lines should not induce fatigue. A cursory observa- 
tion will reveal to the thoughtful person whether the page is 
desirable or not. A few suggestions will, however, be made. 
The type of school-books for the first grade should be at least 
2.6 mm. high, and the width of leading between lines 4.5 mm., 
as shown in the following: 

"Jack and Jill went up the hill, 
To get a pail of water. 
Jack fell down and broke his crown, 
And Jill came tumbling after." 

It would be still better if the print read by first grade pupils 
were as large and legible as the following specimen: 

"Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, 
Where have you been? 
I've been to London, 
To see the queen." 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 295 

Books used in the second and third grades should have letters 
at least 2 mm. high and the lines should be at least 4mm. apart. 
The following specimen is a good model: 

''Come, little leaves," said the wind one day; 
"Come over the meadows with me, and play. 
Put on your dresses of red and gold, — 
Summer is gone, and the days grow cold." 

The print used in the fourth and following school years should 
have letters at least 1.8 mm. high, and the space between the 
lines should be at least 3.6 mm., as shown in the accompanying 
specimen: 

"Harness me down with your iron bands; 

Be sure of your curb and rein; 
For I scorn the power of your puny hands, 

As the tempest scorns a chain." 

The length of the line is also very important. Short lines are 
more easily read and less fatiguing than long ones. Cohn 
demands that no book be printed with letters less than 1.5 mm. 
high and with the down strokes .25 mm. thick. The lines 
should be no longer than 10 cm., or four inches. The question 
of leading is an important consideration. The heavily leaded 
lines are much easier to read than those lightly leaded. The 
difference between the two is seen in the two accompanying 
specimens : 

The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of 
the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into 
the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in 
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall 
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United 
States, except in cases of impeachment. 



2q6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of 
the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into 
the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in 
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall 
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United 
States, except in cases of impeachment. 

It is important to have the room and the page well illuminated 
at all times when reading is done. Diamond type, as shown in 
the accompanying specimen, should be read without a strain at 
a distance of twelve inches. 



**3Ink or Bwim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to thle vote. It Is true, Indeed, that in the beginning wo 
aimed not at Independence. But there's a divinity that Bhapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms ; and, blinded 
to her own Interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted tilt independence la now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth 
to it, and it Is oura. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration ? " 

There are many other regulations that should be understood 
and heeded, but the minor ones have been left for special 
treatises on the subject. 1 Too much emphasis cannot be laid 
upon the necessity of having good light, well-printed books and 
maps, the best of blackboards, and rooms with sufficient yet not 
glaring lights. The child should always be properly placed so 
that he can see without strain or fatigue. One more point only 
will be suggested. There is great danger of requiring too much 
reading and writing of young children. Instruction during the 
first few years of school life should be mainly oral. The frequent 
custom of assigning so much book-work, upon which children 
are to be merely tested, shows pedagogic ignorance. Still more 
reprehensible is the practice of giving written work for "busy 
work." It is safe to say that during the first six school years 
there is five times as much written work as there ought to be. 
The only way many teachers know how to keep pupils busy is to 
set them to wagging a pen. 

Hearing: Prevalence of Defects. — Although there seems to 
be considerable variation among the results of different investi- 
gations, there is abundant evidence that the percentage of 
children with defective hearing is large. Many of the variant 
results are evidently due to differences in means and conditions 
of testing. The test employed in all cases given below was the 

1 For many additional suggestions see Shaw's School Hygiene, chap. 9. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 297 

whisper test. There is no uniform standard for whispering, 
different persons whispering with different degrees of loudness. 
Much depends also on the words used and the stillness of the 
room. Each investigator has to establish his own standard 
from normal cases. 1 

Several well-supported conclusions are apparent in all the 
results: (1) The number of defects increases from grade to 
grade. (2) Among the poor and especially among the uncleanly, 
the percentage is higher than among the well-to-do. (3) The 
majority of children and many of the teachers were not aware 
of the defects. In one New York school only one child out of 
seventy-six defectives was known by the teacher to be afflicted. 
At Terre Haute, out of ninety-eight defectives the teacher knew 
of only one. In an orphan asylum, at the same place, two out of 
twenty-seven were known to the teacher. (4) Usually both ears 
are not affected to the same extent, though if either is in a very 
serious condition the other suffers also. (5) Among feeble- 
minded or generally defective children there are many more with 
deranged hearing than among normal children. Barr, of Glas- 
gow, estimates that the ratio is two to one. (6) In many cases 
those with abnormal hearing are classed by their teacher as lazy, 
absent-minded, inattentive, stubborn, etc. (7) " Gelle also ex- 
amined with the watch the hearing of pupils in schools of the 
first order in Paris. He carefully tested those who were lowest 
in their classes, and were counted dull and bad, and always 
being punished and scolded. He counted the normal distance 
for hearing the watch at 1.25 metres. In one school, among seven 
primary pupils he found only two who could hear the watch at 
more than a metre with both ears, four heard it with both ears at 
50 centimetres and under, and one heard it with one ear at 

1 metre, and with the other at 20 centimetres. Among thirteen 
intermediate pupils, two heard the watch at more than 1.25 
metres; five at from 1 to 1.25 metres on one side and at 60 centi- 

1 Most of the facts herein stated concerning defective hearing have been taken 
from Chrisman's study, "The Hearing of Children," Pedagogical Seminary, 

2 : 397-441- 



298 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



metres and below on the other; six at 65 centimetres and below 
in both ears. This testing was done in the greatest silence. Good 
cranial perception was noticed in all. All these pupils were 
noted by their teachers as incapable, unintelligent, disobedient, 
were frequently punished, and almost always placed last (on 
the row of seats) for their disobedience. . . . Among twenty 
of the foremost pupils in four classes in a school, there were but 
six who heard the watch at less than 50 centimetres, whereas 
among twenty of the lowest pupils in these same classes, there 
was not a one that heard the watch at more than 50 centi- 
metres." x 

Chrisman made a careful analysis and summary of all the 
important investigations that had been made on the hearing of 
school children. The following table is largely a reproduction 
of his table: 2 



TABLE SHOWING DEFECTS OF HEARING AMONG PUPILS IN VARI- 
OUS SCHOOLS 



NAME OF 

INVESTI- 
GATOR 


PLACE 


DATE 


NUMBER 
EXAMINED 


NORMAL 

DIS- 
TANCE 


NUMBER 
DEFEC- 
TIVE 


PER CENT. 
DEFECTIVE 


Reichard . . . 

Sexton 

Weil 

Worrell 

Gelle - 

Moure 

Bezold 

Von Gossler 
Lunin 

Zhermunski . 

Barr 

Schmiegelow 


Riga 

New York 

Stuttgart 

Terre Haute . . . 


1878 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1885 
1888 

1888 

1889 

1889 


1,055 

570 
5,905 

491 
1,400 
3,588 

281 
JtW. 1,897 
\ P. 1,680 

600 

581 


12 ft 

15 m 
15 ft 
8m 
15 m 

16m 
12 m 




235 

76 

1,855 

125 

616 
495 

55 
W. 317 
P. 222 
166 
III 35 
I II 261 


22.27 

13.33 

31.22 

25.49 
20 to 25 

17.15 

25^8 
2.18*. 1.80t 

19.5 
W. 16.7 
P. 13.17 

27.66 

I 6.02 

II 44.9 


Bordeaux 

Munich 

Prussia 

St. Petersburg. 

St. Petersburg 

Glasgow 

Copenhagen . . . 


4m. 



* Higher schools. 

1 W = whisper test. P = Pulitzer's acoumeter. 



t Lower schools. 

§ I = below 2 metres. II = between 2 and 4 metres. 



It is even more true of hearing than of sight that defects may 
exist unknown to the individual afflicted. With children it is 
very difficult to discover deficiencies. Even experts have diffi- 
culty in determining. Many people have become stone deaf 
in one ear without realizing it. Still more frequently great 

1 Chrisman, Op. cit., 2 : 407-408. 2 Op. cit., p. 437. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 299 

dulness may exist without being detected. Parents and teachers 
usually do not discover the hearing defects in children until they 
assume an aggravated form. The misunderstandings due to 
defective hearing are more often attributed to inattention, diso- 
bedience, or stupidity. The two former verdicts are frequently 
rendered especially when the child has one good ear. When the 
other ear is toward the teacher and misunderstandings or diso- 
bedience occur the teacher is sure that it is the child's fault, 
inasmuch as on some other occasions obedience ensues. This 
suggests the extreme necessity of making frequent tests upon 
school children. 

Tests for Deafness. — It is important for teachers and parents 
to understand how to make simple untechnical tests of the 
hearing of children. The purpose should not be to displace 
the medical specialist. On the contrary, the teacher and the 
parent should simply seek to prevent as many diseases as possible 
and be intelligently alert in their discovery. Once disease is 
suspected, more accurate observations and tests should be insti- 
tuted for the purpose of confirming or allaying suspicion. If 
a pupil is dull, listless, inattentive, or a mouth-breather, notice 
carefully whether he can hear what is said to him. This can 
generally be determined by speaking in a low voice, especially 
with the lips screened from his view. This last is necessary 
because many deaf become exceedingly expert lip-readers. The 
whisper test is recommended by many as very efficient. A 
standard must be established by testing several persons. It 
is not absolutely reliable, because of the difficulty of stand- 
ardizing the voice. Again, through apperception the subject 
may guess much by detecting a single syllable. It is well to 
use a variety of words to see if there may be some special 
type of sound-blindness. Dr. Blake, a famous Boston aurist, 
gave the following test- words in a grammar school : Cat, dog, 
fan, few, long, land, log, pen, pod. Many other words were 
given back instead of the test words. "The words used for pod 
were: Hove, hoe, hawk, hoved, hoad, hoge, hart, half, hard, 
hope, hub, hark, hood, pawd, parg, palm, pant, paw, parm, 



300 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

pok, pout, pard, bong, cot, tod, of — each once; heart, hug, 
prove, papa, dod, long, tog — each twice; hollow, path, pot, pob, 
pop, log, pual — each three times; hot, cod, pug — each four times; 
have, pond — each five; fog, six; park, ten; hard, twenty-five; 
pog, twenty-six; hod, thirty-six; hog, eighty-five." ' These 
tests are very suggestive concerning the teaching of spelling 
also. 

A more accurate test is the watch test. The room should be 
absolutely quiet, and a standard determined by testing several 
normal persons under the given conditions. The child tested 
should not see the watch or his imagination will lead to error. 
The test should be made by gradually bringing the watch toward 
each ear (the other ear being stopped), and then by slowly re- 
moving the watch from the ear. The distance depends much 
upon the watch and other conditions. The most accurate test 
known is that made by the use of Seashore's audiometer. This 
consists of an instrument possessing an induction coil, a dry 
battery, a galvanometer, a resistance coil, switches, and a tele- 
phone receiver, which produce and convey to the ear a definitely 
graded series of tones. These are controlled by merely adjusting 
keys which make electrical connections. 2 

All cases of deafness found among school children should at 
once be reported to parents, who in turn should consult a 
specialist. A large percentage of cases will yield tC treat- 
ment if discovered in time. All school children ought to be 
examined about once a year. The tests would not take long 
to make. If not all are tested the teacher should be on the 
watch for cases, and those suspected should be thoroughly 
examined. 

Causes: Hygienic Suggestions. — There are many causes of 
deafness, a few of which will be mentioned. First, there are the 
hereditary predispositions. Fay is authority for the statement 
that "brothers and sisters of the deaf are found to be deaf in 

1 Chrisman, Op. cit., p. 428. 

2 Seashore, "Suggestions for Tests on School Children," Educational Review, 
22 : 69-82. 



WORK, FATIGUE, AND HYGIENE 301 

twc hundred and forty-five cases out of one thousand. Where 
both parents are deaf the children are two hundred and fifty-nine 
times as likely to be deaf as when both parents are normal." * 
Many children are born deaf in varying degrees from slight 
dulness of this sense to total deafness. Not a few cases of con- 
siderable deafness are undiscovered for months and even years. 
When there is a hereditary predisposition through scrofulous 
affections a great many conditions may arise to induce deafness. 
Chief among these are such childhood diseases as measles, 
scarlet-fever, whooping-cough, cerebro-spinal-meningitis, diph- 
theria, mumps, etc. Colds in the head, which are so lightly 
regarded by many, are apt to develop into chronic conditions 
of inflammation. The congested membranes may press upon 
the eustachian tube or prevent sufficient air from entering the 
middle ear. Reichard claims that of all causes of defective 
hearing this heads the list. All catarrhal diseases producing 
hypertrophied conditions of the nose and throat cause multitudes 
of cases of disturbed hearing. Adenoid growths often result, 
which press upon the eustachian tube, fill the nasal passages, or 
otherwise obstruct the breathing. The mouth-breather should 
always be examined carefully, as conditions quite likely exist 
which demand immediate attention. Enlarged tonsils are a 
frequent cause of deafness. Adenoids and enlarged tonsils 
usually accompany each other. They are of surprising fre- 
quency. One physician informed me that he had operated 
upon one thousand two hundred cases in eight years. How 
many more must have been suffering from the same causes! 
It is of vast importance to have the specialist remove these 
growths, thus usually relieving the deafness. If attended to 
before adolescence the cure is usually complete. If postponed 
until later, for some unknown reason, cures are much less fre- 
quent. If present in infancy, adenoids sometimes develop such 
alarming proportions as to press upon the brain and produce 
idiocy. Undoubtedly many children might have been saved to so- 
ciety had they received the attention of the specialist early enough. 

1 Marriage of the Deaf in America, p. 49. 



CHAPTER XII 
INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 

General Considerations. — There are few who would not admit 
that among people there are many obvious differences of physical 
structure, and that these differences are natural. But when 
mental qualities are considered it is at once assumed that all are 
alike or would be if educated alike. Teachers even are apt to 
think that all the intellectual differences among children can be 
accounted for by differences of diligence, willingness to work, 
application, etc. They will even admit temperamental differ- 
ences to account for differences of application, but tacitly assume 
that intellectually "all men are created equal." No greater 
fallacy ever existed. No two individuals were ever exactly alike, 
physically, mentally, or morally. Occasionally a pair of twins 
seem almost indistinguishable, but careful study of them always 
reveals large differences. 

The organic world reveals great differences among individuals 
of the same species. In the plant world it would be impossible 
to find two leaves, two blades of grass, or two plants absolutely 
alike. Some slight differences serve to give each its individual- 
ity. In turning to human beings we shall not find it difficult to 
discover abundant cases of individual variations. There are 
the giants and the dwarfs, the tall and the short, the blondes and 
brunettes, beautiful and ugly, black and white, good and bad, 
choleric and phlegmatic, brilliant and stupid, blue-eyed and 
brown-eyed, and other extremes too numerous to chronicle. 
Between these extremes there are all grades and shades of 
apparent difference. Besides these obvious differences there 
are innumerable variations which are not so apparent and hence 

302 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 303 

thought not to exist. Some persons burst forth into song with 
the most meagre training, while others, with the best masters, 
could never carry a tune or discover discord; some are ready 
spellers, while many others are hopeless; some are born mathe- 
maticians, while others never can progress beyond the merest 
rudiments. One child early exhibits mechanical genius, devising 
appliances for every sort of work, while another can never learn 
to put together the simplest contrivance; one can memorize 
verbatim with the greatest ease, while another can never repeat 
a quotation; one person picks up the pen and without training 
begins to produce literature, while another cannot chronicle 
accurately the simplest event; one mounts the platform and 
charms the multitude with his eloquence, while another is made 
mute in the presence of an audience. Although all human 
beings possess the same general faculties, yet there are wonderful 
differences of development among individuals and also between 
the lowest and the highest as a class. Even zoologically there 
are notable developmental differences. Fiske remarks 1 that: 
"The cranial capacity of the European exceeds that of the 
Australian by forty cubic inches, or nearly four times as much as 
that by which the Australian exceeds the gorilla; and the ex- 
pansion is almost entirely in the upper and anterior portions." 
Anatomical Variations. — Anatomists inform us that there is 
great variability in all parts of man's structure. Many organs 
are atavistic in nature and approximate the structures of other 
animals. The arteries are so variable that surgeons have found 
it necessary to determine the probable proportion of each varia- 
tion. The point of decussation of the brachial artery sometimes 
varies five or six inches. Occasionally the branching takes place 
at so high a level as to make the artery appear double. The 
position of the heart varies so much that in occasional cases 
it is transposed from the left to the right side of the body. 
This condition is usually associated with a general transposition 
of the viscera and the possession of a right instead of a left 
aortic arch. The internal structure of the heart varies greatly 

1 Destiny of Man, p. 48. 



3 04 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

among individuals. 1 An occasional person has all double teeth, 
others have double rows of teeth. Wallace reports 2 that muscles 
are so variable that in fifty cases studied no two were alike. In 
thirty-six cases no fewer than five hundred and fifty-eight varia- 
tions were found. In a single male subject seven muscular va- 
riations atavistic in character were observed. "Autopsies have 
shown that in right-handed persons the speech centre is placed 
or is functional usually in the left cerebral hemisphere, while 
in the case of left-handed individuals aphasia and paralysis are 
produced by lesions involving the right side of the brain." 3 

Wiedersheim is authority for the statement that there are such 
great individual differences of development of the muscular 
system that new muscles, not catalogued in the text-books, can 
be found in nearly every person. These variations are retro- 
gressive and vestigial, occasional, or atavistic; and progressive 
or newly developing structures. Donaldson tells us that among 
brains, as in the case of all organs called similar, there are very 
numerous and wide variations. The statistics on the brain 
weights of eminent men and the discussion of the relation between 
body and mind show this very clearly. Thackeray's brain, 
weighing 1,644 grams, is the heaviest recorded; while Tiede- 
mann, the great anatomist, equally as great in intellect, possessed 
a brain weighing only 1,254 grams. Not only are there great 
variations in size and weight, but also in structure. 4 In measur- 
ing height sitting and standing, "Zeissing found individual dif- 
ferences here so great that the proportions of some children at 
four were like those of others at fourteen." 5 The finger prints 
of each person are so unique in character that they are as certain 
a means of identification as a photograph. This method is so 
accurate that it has been used to some extent in identifying and 
in tracing criminals. It has also been used in banks as a means 
of identifying depositors, being much more conclusive than 

1 See Cunningham's Text-Book of Anatomy, pp. 946-956, for many interesting 
cases of variations. 2 Darwinism, p. 447. 

3 Howell, Text-Book of Physiology, p. 216. 

4 Growth of the Brain, p. 134. 6 Hall, Adolescence, I, p. 61. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 305 

handwriting. Although the size of the finger prints enlarges 
from childhood to maturity, the arrangement never changes and 
duplicates do not exist. 

Athletic promoters often argue that athletic training can de- 
velop stars out of weaklings. Real trainers know better, but 
the public is often made to believe the alleged virtues. Star 
athletes are not made, they are born just as poets are. No one 
without athletic power, latent or apparent, ever developed into 
a star on the athletic field. The great majority would never be 
able to make a hundred-yard dash in ten seconds though they 
should "work out" every day of their school life. Others are 
acknowledged sprinters without a day of training. Superin- 
tendent Reed took a series of measurements of his high-school 
boys, and they discovered that only those with arms of certain 
proportions could throw a ball well. Others might try hard, but 
could never succeed. Nature had determined these matters 
long before. Tests in simple reaction times show variations 
from .125 of a second to .250 of a second. No amount of 
practice materially changes the individual's norm. 

Variations in Sensitivity. — There are very striking individual 
differences in sensitivity. Ribot reports 1 that Lapps take 
tobacco oil for colic and that their skins are as insensitive as are 
their stomachs. Montesquieu says that in Lapland you must 
flay a man to make him feel. Ribot cites many cases of persons 
who have hypersensitivity to either heat or cold. Some persons, 
as we all know, are so sensitive to tickling that the slightest touch 
may produce syncope. Point a finger at some children and 
suggest tickling and they are so hypersensitive that they almost 
go into spasms. Others are wholly insensible to it. Mosso 
tells us that if different persons are exposed to cold "one takes 
inflammation of the lungs, another tetany, a third facial paraly- 
sis, a fourth rheumatism, a fifth enteritis, a sixth a simple chill, 
a seventh some disease of the skin, and the others no harm at 
all. It is the same with intellectual fatigue." 2 

1 Heredity, p. 37. 

2 Fatigue, p. 220. 



i 



306 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Variations in Mental Characteristics. — The mental processes 
of different people have their special characteristics, although 
this is scarcely suspected by the popular mind. Some are 
ear-minded, some eye-minded, others motor-minded. Some 
persons think in abstract terms very early, while others never 
get to the point of doing abstract thinking, but must have every- 
thing in the concrete. Darwin tells us that he does not believe 
he ever would have made a mathematician or a lawyer, because 
he found it difficult to carry on a long train of abstractions. He 
had a marvellous mind for the concrete. Some pupils succeed 
famously with arithmetic and algebra, but utterly fail in geom- 
etry. A diagnosis of their types of imagery would doubtless 
reveal inability to visualize. Such persons would never make 
architects or inventors. Some children begin to walk at six 
or seven months, others not until three times that age. Some 
children can talk readily at twelve months, while I have known 
a bright boy to defer this process until four years of age. One 
record chronicles a list of twelve hundred words at two years of 
age. Many do very little talking before two years. There are 
adult manual laborers of ordinary intelligence who do not have 
a usable vocabulary exceeding two or three thousand words. 
Many scholars use from thirty to thirty-five thousand and recog- 
nize as many more. 

Tests Revealing Differences in Memorizing. — It is very obvious 
that there are very great differences in the results obtained by 
different persons who attempt to memorize. These differences 
in results are undoubtedly due (a) to differences in native ability, 
and (b) to differences in methods of memorizing. To a teacher 
who has not thought of the matter the carefully recorded results 
of a test in memorizing would be very suggestive, possibly almost 
incredible. Many teachers are in the habit of assigning the 
same work to an entire class, and really expect that the results 
obtained should be very uniform. If accurate records are not 
kept the teacher may even think that the results are tolera- 
bly uniform. One of my students, a grade teacher, assigned 
twenty poems to a third grade and a fourth grade, to be memor- 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 307 

ized under uniform conditions. She kept a record of the progress, 
which is shown for the fourth grade in the accompanying table. 
The table for the third grade revealed exactly the same kind of 
variations in results. The numbers from 1 to 20 at the top of 



TABLE SHOWING INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS IN A MEMORIZING TEST 

FOURTH GRADE 



NAME 


AGE 


1 

X 


2 

X 


3 

X 


4 

X 


5 

X 


X 


7 


8 


9 

X 


10 

X 


11 

X 
X 
X 

X 

X 

X 

X 


12 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 

X 

X 


13 

X 

X 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 


14 

X 
X 


15 

X 

X 


16 

X 

X 
X 


17 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 


IS 

X 

X 

X 

X 


19 

X 
X 


20 

X 

X 

X 

X 
X 

X 
X 

X 


Mary 


. . .11 


Ruth 


... 8 


X 


X 


X 




X 
X 
X 

X 

X 
X 


X 
X 

X 
X 

X 
X 


X 

X 

X 
X 


X 
X 


X 
X 

X 


X 

X 

X 
X 

X 


Irene 


.. . 9 


X 

X 


X 
X 


X 

X 


X 
X 


Helen 


. .. 8 




. . . 9 


X 




X 




Dan 


...9 


X 
X 


X 


X 
X 
X 


X 
X 


Howard 


. . .11 


Raymond 


. . . 9 


X 


Omer 


. .. 9 


X 
X 
X 


X 


X 
X 
X 


X 
X 


X 
X 
X 


Walter 


. . . 9 


Bennie 


. . .12 




...8 


X 
X 
X 
X 


X 

X 


X 
X 
X 
X 


X 

X 
X 


X 
X 
X 

X 
X 
X 
X 

X 


X 

X 
X 

X 

X 


X 

X 

X 


X 


X 

X 


X 
X 

X 


X 

X 


Earl. 


. . .10 


Homer 


. .. 9 




. . .10 


Albert 


. .. 9 


X 

X 
X 
X 
X 


X 

X 


X 
X 

X 

X 
X 


X 

X 


John 


. . . 9 


Bessie 


. . .12 


Oscar 


...10 


Florence 


...13 


Mary E 


11 






X 




X 















the table indicate the numbers of the poems. The check marks 
indicate the ones learned up to a given time when the contest 
ended. The results, be it remembered, are given here not to 
show differences in ability. They simply indicate differences in 
accomplishment. Probably there were some slight variations in 
the amounts of time devoted to the exercise, although that was 



3 o8 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



closely guarded. Undoubtedly there were very great differences 
in diligence. But the point to be made is, that here was some 
measurable work assigned to a class under conditions even more 
uniform than those attending the preparation of ordinary school 
lessons, and the results vary from almost nothing accomplished 
to perfect results. The teacher informed me that those who 
accomplished the least probably worked the hardest. The 
results of this test were quite in harmony with the attainments 
of the same children in memorizing other lessons. The teacher 
believed that the results indicated real native differences in 
ability. I feel sure that such was the case, although proof 
would need to come from other tests. 

Conditions Determining Grade. — In the chapter on the relation 
between mind and body it was shown emphatically that a great 
many school children are below normal physically in some par- 
ticular or other. In some schools from twenty per cent, to sixty 
per cent., according to grade, suffer from defective eyesight, and 
from five per cent, to twenty per cent, have defective hearing. 
Add to these the many cases of chronic diseases, deformities, and 
temporary ailments, contagious diseases, disturbances from bad 
ventilation, ill-adjusted seating, lack of sleep, overwork, etc. 

Variations in School Ages. — Dr. Search made a study of the 
ages of school children in a Massachusetts town and discov- 
ered great variations from the normal. His table showing the 
number of pupils of given ages in each of the grades is very 

TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PUPILS OF DIFFERENT AGES 
IN TWO SCHOOL GRADES * 





7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


19 


20 


21 


22 




No. in 4th Grade . . 

No. in High School, 

First Year 


11 


85 


178 


139 


90 


61 


56 
9 


24 
50 


2 
63 


3 

73 


40 


13 


6 


1 




1 



suggestive. A part of that table is reproduced below. Super- 
intendent Johnson, of Decorah, Iowa, who carried out an in- 
vestigation under my direction, found twelve-year-old children 

1 From Search, An Ideal School, p. 19. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 309 

in every grade from the first to the ninth inclusive. Dr. Search 
even found thirteen-year-olds in every grade from the first to the 
tenth, and fourteen-year-olds in every grade from the second to 
the eleventh. He even reports a sixteen-year-old in the first 
grade, and several of them in the fourth. 

Differences Revealed by Individual Measurements. — If a sys- 
tematic study were made by a teacher of the individual differences 

TABLE SHOWING INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AS REVEALED BY 
PHYSICAL MEASUREMENTS AND SCHOOL GRADES * 



Ages 


1st yr. 


Boys 


1st yr. 


Girls 


4th yr. 


Boys 


4th yr. 


Girls 


MIN. 

13.9 


MAX. 

17.8 


MIN. 

11.0 


MAX. 

17.0 


MIN. 

18.0 


MAX. 

19.7 


MIN. 

17.3 


MAX. 

19.6 


Height standing . 


60.0 


70.9 


58.6 


65.8 


63.9 


72.0 


60.9 


66.7 


Height sitting . . 


30.5 


36.5 


30.5 


34.0 


33.0 


37.5 


30.5 


34.5 


Weight 


105.0 


145.0 


72.0 


145.0 


130.0 


160.0 


95.0 


125.0 


Arm span 


60.0 


75.0 


55.0 


68.0 


61.7 


72.5 


53.5 


67.0 


Arm length .... 


25.0 


31.0 


24.0 


28.0 


24.7 


31.0 


23.5 


28.0 


Chest Meas. 
(a) Normal .... 


28.0 


34.0 


25.0 


35.0 


32.0 


36.0 


28.0 


32.0 


(b) Expanded . . 


29.5 


37.0 


28.5 


36.0 


33.0 


40.0 


31.0 


33.5 


(c) Contracted . . 


26.0 


31.5 


24.0 


31.5 


31.0 


34.5 


27.0 


31.5 


Head 
{a) Circumference 


20.7 


22.5 


20.2 


22.5 


21.5 


22.4 


21.5 


23.0 


(b) Length 


11.5 


13.5 


11.0 


14.5 


8.0 


12.5 


11.5 


13.0 


(c) Width 


6.0 


6.7 


5.5 


7.0 


6.0 


7.0 


5.5 


7.0 


Length of face . . 


6.7 


8.2 


7.0 


8.5 


7.5 


8.5 


7.2 


8.0 


Class Standing 
(a) English .... 


78.0 


95.0 


79.0 


96.0 


82.0 


90.0 


86.0 


95.0 


(6) Algebra .... 


81.0 


93.0 


82.0 


95.0 


81.0 


94.0 


80.0 


90.0 


(c) Latin 


78.0 


95.0 


65.0 


94.0 


no boys 


taking 


86.0 


93.0 




80.0 


96.0 


78.0 


95.0 










(e) Physiology . . 


77.0 


93.0 


76.0 


95.0 










(/) Phys. geogra- 
phy 


58.0 


94.0 


70.0 


96.0 










(g) Physics 










83.0 


93.0 


80.0 


90.0 


(A) History .... 










83.0 


94.0 


83.0 


93.0 



1 Measurements are indicated 
are in per cents. 



in inches, weights in pounds. The grades 



310 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of physical, intellectual, emotional, and moral qualities of the 
members of a given class, the results would frequently astonish. 
The members of a class who are hypothetically on an equality in 
every respect, who are to be instructed alike, and who are ex- 
pected to attain similar results, in reality begin with very diverse 
individual equipment, and will end their work similarly. That 
they are alike or should be treated alike, is a pure fiction. 

A study including some of the points suggested above was 
made at my suggestion by Superintendent Reed, of Odebolt, 
Iowa, of the pupils in his high school. The accompanying table 
summarizes the results. One needs to notice but a few of the 
items to be impressed with the great differences between maxi- 
mum and minimum attainments. In age there were from 1.7 to 
6 years' difference between members of the same class; in height 
from 6 to 10.9 inches; in weight from 30 to 73 pounds; in 
chest measurement from 4 to 6 inches; in length of head from 
1.5 to 4.5 inches. The differences between the maximum and 
minimum attainments in school grades are equally striking. 
The smallest difference between the maximum and the minimum 
is five per cent, and the greatest is thirty-six per cent. The 
variations in class markings do not exhibit as wide deviations 
as I am confident would be found in many high schools, because 
the particular school was especially well graded on the basis of 
individual ability. 

A little consideration should serve to recall the fact that there 
is nothing else in the universe so plastic and modifiable as mind. 
Consequently we should be prepared to recognize individual 
differences among minds. These mental differences are far 
more pronounced than any physical characteristics. Two per- 
sons may be strikingly similar in height, weight, carriage, and 
facial features, and yet be so dissimilar in mental acumen, dis- 
position, ideals, aspirations, and character that one of them does 
not even remind us of the other. Listen to Mosso on this point: 
"Even at birth men are physiologically diverse. However far 
we look back into the mists of antiquity, there are found men 
who toil for a bare living, and men who to increase their own 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 311 

enjoyment of life cause others to toil. Even if a law were to 
place all men in the same conditions, it would be immediately 
broken, seeing that a law could never be stronger than nature; 
and society would at once be disorganized once more owing to 
the different dispositions received by men at birth. . . . Cir- 
cumspection, perseverance, prudence, temperance, adaptability, 
and alertness of mind are not gifts which nature has bestowed 
on all men, and he who is born with them will know how to 
make himself obeyed. The disappearance of social differences 
is unfortunately a dream still more beyond our reach than the 
universal brotherhood of nations." 1 

Holmes remarks in the Autocrat that "men often remind me 
of pears in their way of coming to maturity. Some are ripe at 
twenty, like human Jargonelles, and must be made the most of, 
for their day is soon over. Some come into their perfect condi- 
tion late, like the autumn kinds, and they last better than the 
summer fruit. And some, that, like the Winter-Nelis, have 
been hard and uninviting until all the rest have had their season, 
get their glow and perfume long after the frost and snow have 
done their worst with the orchards. Beware of rash criticisms; 
the rough and astringent fruit you condemn may be an autumn 
or a winter pear, and that which you picked up beneath the same 
bough in August may have been only its worm-eaten windfalls. 
Milton was a Saint- Germain with a graft of the roseate Early- 
Catherine. Rich, juicy, lively, fragrant, russet-skinned old 
Chaucer was an Easter-Beurre; the buds of a new summer 
were swelling when he ripened." 

Maudsley wrote: 2 "Perhaps of all the erroneous notions 
concerning mind which metaphysics has engendered or abetted, 
there is none more false than that which tacitly assumes or ex- 
plicitly declares that men are born with equal original mental 
capacity, opportunities and education determining the differences 
of subsequent development. The opinion is as cruel as it is 
false. What man can by taking thought add one cubit either 
to his mental or to his bodily stature? Multitudes of human 

1 Fatigue, p. 174. 2 Body and Mind, p. 43. 



3 i2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

beings come into the world weighted with a destiny against which 
they have neither the will nor the power to contend; they are 
the step-children of Nature, and groan under the worst of all 
tyrannies — the tyranny of a bad organization. Men differ, in- 
deed, in the fundamental characters of their minds, as they do 
in the features of their countenances, or in the habits of their 
bodies; and between those who are born with the potentiality 
of a full and complete mental development under favorable 
circumstances, and those who are born with no innate capacity 
of mental development, under any circumstances, there exists 
every gradation. What teaching could ever raise the congenital 
idiot to the common level of human intelligence? What teach- 
ing could ever keep the inspired mind of the man of genius at 
that level?" 

Variations in Examination Papers. — In a set of examination 
papers in a large high school there is always exhibited a great 
range of attainments. If the highest is marked ioo per cent., 
the lowest doubtless will be less than 60 per cent., and often not 
higher than 25 per cent. Often there will be pupils who merit 
more than 100 per cent., that is, they considerably surpass any 
excellence which we may rightfully expect. In marking a set 
of papers of average difficulty some individual papers ought to 
be above 100 per cent. The marks of 100 per cent, or A, or 
Excellent, ought to mean not absolute marks, but that' point in 
our scale which represents the best that may be expected on the 
basis of standards determined for the given grade of pupils or 
kind of work. For example, a first-grade pupil might be marked 
100 per cent, in penmanship, but an eighth-grade pupil doing 
the same kind of crude writing ought to be marked about 25 
per cent. In large classes several will accomplish more than 
100 per cent, by outside reading, by more vigorous thinking, 
and because of natural capacities. In colleges it is quite usual 
to mark some students A+. 

Thorndike says: 1 "The amount of difference actually found 
in children of the same age or in children in the same school 

1 The Principles of Teaching, p. 71. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 313 

grade is greater than teachers perhaps realize. The range 
of ability in school children of the same age is such that in a 
majority of capacities the most gifted child will, in comparison 
with the least-gifted child of the same age, do over six times as 
much in the same time or do the same amount with a sixth as 
many errors. ... If the best speller of a class can spell correctly 
such words as fatiguing, appreciate, delicious, guarantee, 
triumph, and accident, the worst speller will barely spell such 
words as house, dollar, potato, present, severe, and praise. 1 If 
the weakest pupil of a class in computation can do five examples 
in ten minutes, the best pupil will probably do at least twenty. 
Roughly speaking, the teacher of a class, even in a school graded 
as closely as is possible in large cities where two classes are pro- 
vided in each building for each grade and where promotion 
occurs every six months, will find in the case of any kind of 
work some pupil who can do from two to five times as much in 
the same time or do the same amount from two to five times as 
well as some other pupil. The highest tenth of her class will 
in any one trait have an average ability from one and three- 
fourths to four times that of the lowest tenth," and we readily see 
that there must be a constantly varying deviation from normal 
conditions and averages. 

Again, many pupils in the schools have undesirable home con- 
ditions under which to do their work. Probably few have a 
room properly heated, ventilated, and lighted, adequate desk 
room, or freedom from disturbance. Many are under special 
emotional tension because of straitened pecuniary circumstances, 
sorrow in the family, ill-treatment, premature love affairs, undue 
social life, real or imagined ill-health, and a great variety of 
other causes. All of these factors affect the working capacity of 
the pupil and materially influence the amount and quality of 
work accomplished. The wise teacher will recognize that there 
are influences constantly operative in affecting results. Before 
passing judgment causes and motives will be investigated. 

1 Thorndike appends the examination papers of two pupils of the same class. A 
spelled correctly all except one word out of twenty, while B missed all except one. 



3 i4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Fewer cases will be measured by inflexible rules, and more and 
more will individual cases be evaluated on their merits. 

The school should not only give opportunities for dull and 
delinquent children, but equal' opportunities for precocious and 
earnest ones. Not only are there many subnormal children in 
every school, but there are many hypernormal — those with 
potential qualities which only await development to make them 
the illustrious of their time. As a matter of fact, undue propor- 
tions of energy and time are given to the lame and the lazy. 
Much solicitude is given to finding ways and means of helping 
the slow, while little thought is given to special ways of providing 
for those who can easily forge ahead. It is usually the slow 
pupil who is given most of the time in recitation (except when 
visitors are present) ; the slow one who is kept after school to be 
helped; the slow one over whose papers the teacher burns the 
midnight oil. The bright one recites quickly, asks few time- 
consuming questions, easily finds occupation for himself, is sel- 
dom selected for extra work, and is a joy forever to his teacher. 
But how frequently he becomes restive because of the lock-step 
which he must keep, the time consumed with the slower, and the 
consequent narrowing of instruction. The result is that fre- 
quently such pupils become dissatisfied — they know not why — 
and either make a dash for liberty, become chronic sources of 
annoyance, or learn to meekly submit and become dawdlers. 
Dr. Search has shown 1 that children often drop behind a grade, 
but seldom skip one. "The opportunity to drop behind the 
class is always an individual opportunity; the opportunity 
to get ahead is almost always limited by class environment. 
Between these two kinds of opportunity there is an abysmal 
difference. As schools usually go, it is ten times harder for a 
pupil to gain a grade than to lose one; ten times harder to rise 
than to fall. Never until the school is built fundamentally for 
the individual will this element of loss disappear." 

Formative vs. Reformative Education. — The public mind is 
not sufficiently alert to the importance of formative versus 

1 An Ideal School, p. 21. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 315 

reformative education. Of course, the destitute, crippled, blind, 
and vicious should ever receive sympathy and aid from those 
more fortunate. We should minister most wisely to their every 
need; we should heal their infirmities; we should educate them 
into self-support and reclaim them to society if possible; but it 
should also be understood, as Horace Mann stated, that in 
education one former is worth a thousand reformers. There is 
absolutely no question that a dollar spent in formative educa- 
tional means under desirable conditions will obviate the necessity 
of spending a thousand for reformation. A careful diagnosis 
of educational agencies is showing very clearly that one promi- 
nent reason why so many pupils withdraw from school long 
before they have exhausted its resources and before they have 
become self-supporting is because the schools do not' amply 
minister to the widely divergent wishes and needs of all the 
pupils. 

From the time of its organization to 1899 the State of Iowa 1 
had paid for the equipment and maintenance of its two peni- 
tentiaries, $4,019,715; for its four hospitals for the insane, 
$11,899,143; for the two reform schools, $1,765,624; for the 
institution for the feeble-minded, $2,205,175; and for the blind, 
deaf and dumb, and other unfortunates, enough to bring the 
total sum expended by the State for its criminals and unfortu- 
nates, to $24,104,101. During the same period the State had 
appropriated for her university, her normal school, and her 
college of agriculture and mechanic arts, $3,703,678. That is to 
say, the State had paid about seven times as much for the care, 
education, and reformation of her unfortunates as for the educa- 
tion of her intellectual elite; seven times as much for those at 
the foot of the ladder as for those at the top. Should not the 
proportions be reversed ? If the State should contribute to the 
education of her choicest in the exact measure that they could 
make use of it, would not the proportion be reversed ? When we 
stop to realize the importance to society of the leaders among men 
can we doubt the wisdom of training them to the highest possible 

1 Iowa is taken as an illustration because the figures are accessible. 



3 i6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

efficiency? In business it is recognized that the great manager 
is worth as much to the business as scores or even thousands 
of ordinary workmen. Is the same not true of society? The 
worth to civilization of a Shakespeare, a Mozart, a Pasteur, an 
Edison, a Horace Mann, a Washington, a Lincoln, a Thomas 
Arnold, cannot be adequately computed in quantitative terms, 
but has each one not been of infinitely greater value to society 
than ten thousand who have simply vegetated ? 

It is certain also that a liberal increase in expenditures for 
education would greatly decrease the amounts necessary for the 
care of the unfortunate. Intelligence reduces disease, pestilence, 
poverty, and crime. The great army of unfortunates are largely 
the victims of their own ignorance or of the ignorance and in- 
iquity of the fathers visited upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generation. The discoveries of Darwin, Pasteur, Jen- 
ner, and their disciples have made it possible to almost stamp 
out small-pox, diphtheria, scarlet-fever, and a host of other in- 
fectious diseases. The researches and sacrifices of Lazear and 
Reed have made it possible to almost eliminate yellow-fever. 
Milk inspection and the enforcement of sanitary precautions are 
saving thousands of babes annually in our metropolitan centres. 
A higher standard of intelligence and the enforcement of higher 
ethical principles in marriage would largely eliminate the blind, 
the deaf and dumb, the insane, criminals, and paupers. 'Higher 
intelligence and higher ethical standards are just what schools 
stand for. 

School Attendance. — Children drop out of schools in great 
numbers because the schools do not offer what they demand, 
and often really need. The growth of second-rate business col- 
leges demonstrates clearly that the public schools are failing to 
provide a certain type of instruction which the people demand. 
If this is not to be had under desirable auspices, it will be ob- 
tained in the only way left. The development of private trade- 
schools, manual-training schools, and technological institutions 
is evidence that certain classes of people demand an education 
that looks more directly toward vocations in which their chil- 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 317 

dren are certain to engage. The lack of such training in the pub- 
lic schools has driven thousands from its doors, and the lack of 
means to secure it at private expense has driven the boys and 
girls to work under unwholesome conditions or, still worse, to 
the streets. In either case, they are surrounded by immoral in- 
fluences. From these classes most of the recruits in crime are 
derived. Is it not time that the public awoke to the need of 
preventive protection ? Judge Lindsey, of the Denver Juvenile 
Court, who has studied so closely the causes of juvenile delin- 
quency, is certain that the lack of vocational education is one of 
the most prolific sources of crime. He pointedly remarks that 
"the only place in the United States where a boy can learn a 
trade at public expense is in the reform school!" This is a sad 
commentary. The public school should be made to fit the 
children, and not the children to fit the school. 

Education a Means of Revelation and Adjustment. — President 
David Starr Jordan, through his vigorous utterances from Stan- 
ford University, has been doing much toward the reorganization 
of schools. He says: "There is no virtue in educational sys- 
tems unless the systems meet the needs of the individual. It is 
not the ideal man or the average man who is to be trained; it 
is the particular man as the forces of heredity have made him. 
His own qualities determine his needs. ' A child is better unborn 
than untaught.' A child, however educated, is still untaught if 
by his teaching we have not emphasized his individual character, 
if we have not strengthened his will and its guide and guardian, 
the mind. ... All education must be individual — fitted to 
individual needs. That which is not so is unworthy of the 
name. A misfit education is no education at all. . . . Higher 
education has seemed to be the need of the few because it has 
been so narrow. It was born in the days of feudal caste. It 
was made for the few. . . . The rewards of investigation, the 
pleasures of high thinking, the charms of harmony, were not for 
the multitude. To the multitude they must be accessible in the 
future. ... If we are to make men and women out of boys and 
girls, it will be as individuals, not as classes. The best field of 



318 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

corn is that in which the individual stalks are most strong and 
most fruitful. Class legislation has always proved pernicious 
and ineffective, whether in a university or in a state. The 
strongest nation is that in which the individual man is most 
helpful and most independent. The best school is that which 
exists for the individual student." * 

President Eliot, in his admirable article, "The Function of 
Education in Democratic Society," has said: "Another im- 
portant function of the public school in a democracy is the dis- 
covery and development of the gift or capacity of each individual 
child. This discovery should be made at the earliest practicable 
age, and, once made, should always influence, and sometimes 
determine, the education of the individual. It is for the interest 
of society to make the most of every useful gift or faculty which 
any member may fortunately possess; and it is one of the main 
advantages of fluent and mobile democratic society that it is 
more likely than any other society to secure the fruition of indi- 
vidual capacities. To make the most of any individual's pecul- 
iar power, it is important to discover it early, and then train it 
continuously and assiduously. It is wonderful what apparently 
small personal gifts may become the means of conspicuous 
service or achievement, if only they get discovered, trained, and 
applied. ... In the ideal democratic school no two children 
would follow the same course of study or have the same tasks, 
except that they would all need to learn the use of the elementary 
tools of education — reading, writing, and ciphering. The differ- 
ent children would hardly have any identical needs. There 
might be a minimum standard of attainment in every branch 
of study, but no maximum. The perception or discovery of the 
individual gift or capacity would often be effected in the elemen- 
tary school, but more generally in the secondary; and the making 
of these discoveries should be held one of the most important 
parts of the teacher's work. The vague desire for equality in a 
democracy has worked great mischief in democratic schools. 
There is no such thing as equality of gifts, or powers, or faculties 

'Jordan, Care and Culture of Men, pp. 66-71. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 319 

among either children or adults. On the contrary, there is the 
utmost diversity; and education and all the experience of life 
increase these diversities, because school, and the earning of a 
livelihood, and the reaction of the individual upon his sur- 
roundings, all tend strongly to magnify innate diversities. The 
pretended democratic school with an inflexible program is 
fighting not only against nature, but against the interests of 
democratic society. Flexibility of program should begin in 
the elementary school, years before the period of secondary 
education is reached. There should be some choice of subjects 
of study by ten years of age, and much variety by fifteen years 
of age. On the other hand, the programs of elementary as 
well as of secondary schools should represent fairly the chief 
divisions of knowledge, namely, language and literature, mathe- 
matics, natural science, and history, besides drawing, manual 
work, and music. If school programs fail to represent the 
main varieties of intellectual activity, they will not afford the 
means of discovering the individual gifts and tendencies of the 
pupils." 1 

Search says: 2 "The child of a king, plus heredity, plus en- 
vironment, stands at the door of the school and knocks, asking 
for that which uniformity can never give. Before the teacher, 
frequently of limited horizon and questionable motive, there 
gather in the school fifty, children. Whence came they ? They 
are the children of God, born of modifying parentages and con- 
ditioned by an evolution which knows no uniformity. In sizes, 
weights, temperaments, physical health, responsibilities, capa- 
bilities, and opportunities, what a heterogeneous assemblage! 
Side by side, in the same school, sit the children of wealth and of 
poverty, of native and of foreign descent, the well-fed and the 
meagrely nourished, the warmly clad and the scantily protected 
from the storm, the refreshed by adequate sleep in rooms of 
pure air and those worn from meagre hours of rest in a crowded, 
unventilated room, the child of luxury and the one of heavy re- 
sponsibilities, the spoiled by indulgent parents and the indepen- 

1 Educational Reform, p. 408. 2 An Ideal School, p. 160. 



3 2o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

dent through forced self-reliance, the robust in physical health 
and the incapacitated by past sicknesses and injuries, the well- 
taught and the ill-taught, the child of virtue and the one whose 
whole life is a moral struggle, the child of encouragement and 
ambition and the one heart-sick and of little expectancy. Is this 
an exceptional school? If not, what are the individual rights 
of these children? How can any system of uniformity answer 
the responsibility which it assumes?" 

Burbank, the botanical wizard, considers differentiation as 
absolutely necessary and unavoidable. He says: 1 " Right here 
let me lay special stress upon the absurdity, not to call it by a 
harsher term, of running children through the same mill in a 
lot, with absolutely no real reference to their individuality. No 
two children are alike. You cannot expect them to develop 
alike. They are different in temperament, in tastes, in disposi- 
tion, in capabilities, and yet we take them in this precious early 
age, when they ought to be living a life of preparation near to the 
heart of nature, and we stuff them, cram them, and overwork 
them until their poor little brains are crowded up to and beyond 
the danger line. The work of breaking down the nervous systems 
of the children of the United States is now well under way. . . . 
It is imperative that we consider individuality in children in their 
training precisely as we do in cultivating plants. Some children, 
for example, are absolutely unfit by nature and temperament for 
carrying on certain studies. Take certain young girls, for 'ex- 
ample, bright in many ways, but unfitted by nature and bent, at 
this early age at least, for the study of arithmetic. Very early — 
before the age of ten, in fact — they are packed into a room along 
with from thirty to fifty others and compelled to study a branch 
which, at best, they should not undertake until they have reached 
maturer years. Can any one by any possible cultivation and 
selection and crossing compel figs to grow on thistles or apples 
on a banana tree?" 

President Eliot says: 2 "Uniformity in intellectual training 

1 "The Training of the Human Plant," Century, 72 : 127-138. 
3 Hinsdale, Studies in Education, p. 123. 



INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS AND DIFFERENCES 321 

is never to be regarded as an advantage, but as an evil from 
which we cannot completely escape. ... All should admit that 
it would be an ineffable loss to mankind if the few great men were 
averaged with the millions of common people — if by the aver- 
aging process the world had lost such men as Faraday and Agas- 
siz, Hamilton and Webster, Gladstone and Cavour. But do we 
equally well understand that when ten bright, promising children 
are averaged with ninety slow, inert, ordinary children, a very 
serious loss is inflicted, not only upon those ten, but upon the 
community in which the one hundred children are to grow up? 
There is a serious and probably an irreparable loss caused by the 
averaging of the ten with the ninety children. Therefore I say 
that uniformity in education all along the line is an evil which 
we should always be endeavoring to counteract, by picking out 
the brighter and better children, and helping them on by every 
means in our power." 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 

Memory is one of the most important powers of the human 
mind, viewed either from the stand-point of the development 
of civilization or from the stand-point of the technique of educa- 
tion. Without it all education and all advancement would be 
impossible. It is only through the proper conservation of ex- 
periences, individual and collective, that progress is made pos- 
sible. The more faithfully the experiences of the animal are re- 
corded, the higher his place in the scale of development. There 
is no educational process into which memory does not enter as 
a factor of prime importance. Hence the significance of the 
study of the nature of memory and its training in a discussion 
of educational psychology. 

Almost everybody assumes to know what memory is. Even 
the unlettered do not hesitate to advance a doctrine concerning 
its improvement. Volumes have been written, and many prac- 
tical suggestions have been given, for the improvement of the 
memory, but it is only within very recent years that scientific 
doctrines concerning the nature of memory and its wise use 
have been evolved. Since all sound methods of its improve- 
ment must rest on the right conception of its nature, it is easy 
to understand that many of the older methods of training have 
been entirely overthrown. The old methods have been found 
to be not only incorrect, but some of them positively harmful. 
We shall see that all training of the memory must be carried on 
according to scientific principles. The old saws and sayings 
concerning memory-training are no more valid than the prov- 
erbs recording popular opinion of the weather, the treatment of 
disease, or many other popular dicta which really represent 

322 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 323 

superstitious credulity rather than scientific observation. We 
shall see that a sound theory of memory and its training will 
furnish many underlying principles of method in all education. 
Therefore, because of the vital connection between memory- 
training and all other intellectual, affective, and volitional train- 
ing, it is of the highest importance that teachers have a thorough 
understanding of the subject. 

A Preliminary Point of View. — In ordinary parlance, when 
memory is spoken of, the term implies the series of mental op- 
erations whereby facts are registered and retained in the mind, 
and at some future time reproduced. In this loose way of con- 
sidering the matter, the various functions in the series are con- 
ceived of as being carried on independent of all physical or 
physiological relations, and the mind is supposed in some mys- 
terious way to "store up" the impressions until needed, when 
they are again in an equally mysterious way "brought forth." 
The main difference between the older, popular conception 
and the newer scientific views is in the present recognition of 
the physical and physiological links in the series of phenomena. 
Memory, instead of being a "storehouse," consists of dynamic 
relations established through experience. There is now a quite 
definite "natural science" of memory. There is, to be sure, an 
unexplainable something beyond the sequence of observable 
phenomena. But that is not peculiar to psychology. The 
same is equally true of physics or chemistry. Natural science, 
in any realm, merely explains the series of changes that occur; 
the final what, why, and how are not attempted in the scientific 
discussion. Those questions belong to metaphysics rather than 
to science. The psychologist is as near to an explanation of the 
simultaneous or sequential occurrences of a brain state and a 
corresponding mental state as the physicist is to telling why 
negative electricity attracts positive, or why a body falls to the 
earth; or as the chemist is to explaining the cause of chemical 
affinity. They can each merely trace the serial changes. The 
psychologist, regarding his subject as a branch of natural science, 
should proceed in exactly the same way. To go beyond is to 



3 2 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

invade the realm of the metaphysician and to forsake purely 
psychological methods. 

Neural Modifications. — Whenever a stimulus acts upon a 
sense-organ it sets up some change, either mechanical or chemi- 
cal, in that organ, which in turn causes a wave of impulse to be 
carried along the sensory nerve toward the brain. There a 
change takes place in the physical arrangement of the neural 
tissue. Just what this change is in every case, no one is able to 
say, but that there is rearrangement can be proved. In Laura 
Bridgman's brain, for example, the areas controlling functions 
which were exercised were normally developed, while the other 
portions were less well developed. We know that exercise of the 
brain causes a change in size. This is demonstrated through 
such experiments as those of Venn in measuring the heads of 
Cambridge students. Long generations of exercise of particular 
kinds have also produced the varying peculiarities of brain struct- 
ure in different animals, e. g., large areas for smell in the dog, 
large frontal areas in man, etc. Again, lack of exercise causes 
atrophy. This is demonstrated in the case of defectives like 
Laura Bridgman and others. These changes in neural tissue 
are made possible through the property of plasticity. There is 
also a tendency toward permanence of structure after changes 
have been wrought in the tissues. Growth means plasticity, 
and also tendency toward fixity. 

Organic Memories. — Biologically, memory is not a property 
of neural tissue alone. There is ample evidence to support the 
belief that all living animal tissues possess memory. We may 
go a step further and assert that the basal factors of memory 
— registration, conservation, and reproduction of impressions 
gained through stimulation — are common to all organic tissues. 
All those modifications produced and conserved in living matter, 
plant or animal, are termed organic memories. Thus, muscular, 
osseous, cartilaginous, and vegetable tissues all possess organic 
memories of previous experiences. Organic memories include 
race memories as well as individual memories. The basis of 
heredity and instinct is organic memory. Huxley has written, 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 325 

concerning the same point, the following: "It is not to be 
doubted that those motions which give rise to sensation leave 
on the brain changes of its substance which answer to what 
Haller called vestigia rerum, and to what the great thinker 
David Hartley termed 'vibratiuncules.' The sensation which 
has passed away leaves behind molecules of the brain compe- 
tent to its reproduction — 'sensigenous molecules,' so to speak, 
which constitute the physical foundation of memory." Meu- 
mann 1 has very recently emphasized and endorsed the bio- 
physical idea of the fundamental meaning of memory first ad- 
vanced by Hering. 2 The "dispositions," or "traces," produced 
by given experiences constitute the conserving element of all 
memory. The reawakening of these traces constitutes the 
biological basis of recall. 

Biological Meaning of Registration. — We thus see that regis- 
tration is primarily a physical phenomenon depending on the 
plasticity of the nervous structure. Retention is fundamentally 
physical and physiological. The neural substance, once changed 
in a given manner, tends by virtue of nutrition to maintain the 
new condition. It is not possible in every case to demonstrate 
that a change has taken place, and still more difficult to prove 
that the modifications have been conserved. But may we not 
draw upon the physical analogy of magnetization in which 
modification and conservation, though unseen, are certain and 
undoubted? The iron which has been magnetized has under- 
gone a molecular modification. The eye cannot detect it, the 
balance record it, the scales measure, nor chemical reactions 
indicate; but the fact is attested by its behavior on certain 
occasions. 

So, eye, ear, balance, or measure cannot prove that a few 
facts learned to-day modify my brain structure. But my be- 
havior to-morrow, next week, next year, in old age, will tell the 
fact plainly. The particular facts I say I have forgotten, but 
why do I plan my business, arrange my affairs, entertain certain 

1 Vorlesung zur Einf'uhrung in die~Experimentelle Pddagogik, Leipsic, 1907. 

2 Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter, 1870. 



326 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

projects and immediately reject others? You say, because of 
the teachings of experience. Yes, but what is experience but the 
residuum of various individual effects which have been con- 
served, and in the light of which I give immediate judgment? 
The practical physician diagnoses a case and immediately pre- 
scribes before a novice could have detected symptoms. Why can 
he do this? He does not consciously go over all his previous 
cases, marshal each one individually before him; he does not 
recall his lectures, nor the books he has read. But in a no less 
true sense he remembers all his experiences, and now reacts 
differently for all those combined experiences. The next time he 
will act still differently in the light of the. new plus all of the old. 
Dr. J. M. Buckley relates 1 "When but a boy I once sat in 
the office of Jay Cooke, when he was transacting the business 
that enabled the United States to proceed in the great conflict. 
A man came in and said, ' Will you take three hundred thousand 
dollars at such a rate?' Without a moment's hesitation Mr. 
Cooke said, 'No, sir.' Another man came in and asked, 
'What will you give me on such a security?' 'The rate of one- 
sixteenth of one per cent, in advance of what I said last week,' 
was the immediate reply. I said to Mr. Cooke, 'You did not 
seem to think at all when you made those answers.' ' Of course 
I did not think. That is my business. All these things are in 
my mind all the time. You present them and I decide.'" 
Were the ideas consciously present, or even present at all ? 

Memory in Micro-Organisms. — It will be shown in the chapter 
on imitation that all living protoplasmic material possesses a 
certain power of selection among various stimuli, tending to 
avoid those that are harmful and to maintain those that are 
beneficial. Certain bacteria have been observed to avoid poi- 
sonous materials placed near them and to "fly from the mouth 
of the tube in haste, with all the external signs of intelligence and 
fear," but when an extract of beef is placed near them, "they 
swarm toward it from afar, crawling over one another." Simi- 
larly plants present a certain behavior toward certain stimuli, 

1 The Chautauqua Assembly Herald, August 10, 1901. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 327 

and once a reaction is set up there is a tendency to maintain it, 
even after the stimulus is removed. Furthermore, as cited by 
Baldwin, plants and unicellular animals "go after, or shrink 
from, a stimulating influence, according as its former im- 
pression has been beneficial or damaging." From these re- 
actions Binet concludes that protozoa have memory, choice, and 
volition. Bunge says, "The behavior of these monads in their 
search after food, and their method of absorbing it, are so re- 
markable, that one can hardly avoid the conclusion that the acts 
are those of conscious beings." Baldwin does not care to com- 
mit himself, and so he says, "They behave as though they had " 
the various forms of intelligence ascribed. 1 

There appears to be no difficulty in accepting all the conclu- 
sions except the one concerning consciousness. Monads cer- 
tainly possess memory, that is, power to record, conserve, and 
similarly react at subsequent times. They may exhibit 
choice, but it is blind choice, and they exert volitional activity, 
which fundamentally is the exertion of energy — self-activity — 
in the direction of remembered experiences, the first experience 
being accidental. Now, self-activity is a property of all animal 
and plant life. Animals exhibit self-activity in their appropri- 
ation of other forms to their own use, eating plants, consuming 
oxygen, mineral matter, etc., and assimilating these into their 
systems and converting them into their own bodies. Besides 
this, they move and feel, and in many cases possess quite high 
intellectual powers. Plants also grow according to hereditary 
patterns by reacting upon their environment in definite, pre- 
determined ways. They must have light, water, carbon, salt, 
etc., and they sometimes struggle vigorously for existence. 
Witness the way that plants turn toward the light, strengthen 
themselves in weak places to withstand storms, tenaciously 
cling to and twine themselves around various objects, or vigor- 
ously push their roots through obstacles, even through stone 
walls or pieces of wood. The ideal forms which these beings 
attempt to assume are, of course, not conscious models, but nev- 

1 Baldwin, Mental Development, pp. 272-274. 



328 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ertheless as definite as many hereditary tendencies of man. 
"Nearly all of the process of self-activity," says Dr. Harris, 
"lies below the threshold of consciousness. In the case of 
assimilation (or digestion), mere vitality, all is unconscious." 1 

Subconscious Memories. — The great difficulty in the way 
of granting that psychic life is possessed by plants and micro- 
organisms (animal or plant) arises because psychic processes 
are usually considered identical with consciousness. Upon a 
moment's reflection this is clearly seen to be incorrect. A 
large part of the normal human psychic life is manifestly 
subconscious, and then to certain kinds of processes we can- 
not properly ascribe consciousness as a property at all. Con- 
sciousness is a cognitive, an intellectual state. It means an 
awareness of one's own mental processes. What then shall we 
say of all that volitional life of which we are not at all cognizant ? 
Much of the affective life also never comes above the threshold 
of consciousness. It often requires close introspection to bring 
these states into full view. Regarded in this way the whole 
difficulty disappears. We can comprehend that all proto- 
plasmic life possesses psychic power, but not necessarily con- 
sciousness. 

The discussion presumably needs no further prolongation to 
convince that all living organic material possesses the function 
of memory; not necessarily conscious memory, but memory 
involving registration of impressions, conservation of the modi- 
fied organism, and even the power of reacting similarly to once- 
experienced stimuli, and of repeating actions once initiated, 
even accidentally. Some may say that many of these processes 
are habits. Even so: that strengthens the case, for does not 
memory lie at the basis of all habits ? Here, again, the uncon- 
sciously formed habits have not received their due share of 
consideration. Even human beings form numberless habits 
into which not a single conscious memory has entered. The 
subconscious, or even non-conscious, organic memories have 

1 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 31. For the best and fullest dis- 
cussion of self -activity, see that work, chap. 3. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 329 

been the sole conservators of multitudes of experiences, per- 
haps accidentally initiated. The pedagogic value of understand- 
ing this thoroughly ought, also, to become more and more ap- 
parent. Its relation to the formation of habits of conduct is 
of inestimable importance. 1 

Physical Basis of Memory. — We have seen that the property 
of retention of impressions is possessed by all living tissues. 
In a certain sense we might say that even inorganic matter 
sometimes possesses memory. There are many analogues both 
of registration and retention in purely physical substances. If 
a piece of white paper on which a knife is placed is exposed to 
the actinic rays of the sun, it will, if kept in the dark, preserve 
the image of the knife for years. The photographer's sensitive 
plate records and retains impressions in a similar manner. The 
ocean which has its surface ruffled can never have identically the 
same molecular structure which it previously possessed. " Every 
impression," says Delbceuf, "leaves a certain ineffaceable 
trace; that is to say, molecules once disarranged and forced to 
vibrate in a different way cannot return exactly to their primitive 
state. If I brush the surface of water at rest with a feather, the 
liquid will not take again the form which it had before; it may 
present a smooth surface, but molecules will have changed places, 
and an eye of sufficient power would see traces of the passage of 
the feather. Organic molecules acquire a greater or less degree 
of aptitude for submitting to disarrangement. No doubt, if this 
same exterior force did not again act upon the same molecules, 
they would tend to return to their natural form; but it is far 
otherwise if the action is several times repeated. . In this case 
they lose, little by little, the power of returning to their original 
form, and become more and more closely identified with that 
which is forced upon them, until this becomes natural in its turn, 
and they again obey the least cause that will set them in vibra- 
tion." 2 

Dissolve a crystalline salt, say sodium chloride, and then let 

1 See Kuhlmann, American Journal of Psychology, i6:pp. 342-345. 

2 Theorie generate de la sensibilite, p. 60. 



330 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

it recrystallize. The crystals will not resume the same positions 
relative to each other, but the crystals themselves will assume 
exactly the same geometrical form as previously. Water 
crystallizes in definite forms. Why is this? Who shall say 
that it is not at least a form of heredity? James quotes M. 
Leon Dumont, who says that inorganic substances and dead 
tissues form habits. "Everyone knows how a garment, after 
having been worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body 
better than when it was new; there has been a change in the 
tissue, and this change is a new habit of cohesion. A lock 
works better after being used some time; at the outset more 
force was required to overcome certain roughnesses in the 
mechanism. The overcoming of their resistance is a phenome- 
non of habituation. It costs less trouble to fold a paper when it 
has been folded already. . . . The sounds of a violin improve 
by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibres of the 
wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to har- 
monic relations." x 

Analogy of the Phonograph. — Lloyd Morgan compares ana- 
logically retention in the phonograph to physiological retention. 
"When we speak into a phonograph the tones of our voice are not 
hidden away in, and retained by, the cylinder of the instrument; 
but the wax or other material is indented, as a result of the in- 
cidence of the sound waves, in such a way that it is capable of re- 
producing similar sound waves at a subsequent time. So, too, 
the brain tissue is so modified by the nervous disturbances which 
are the accompaniments of an impression that, under appropri- 
ate neural conditions, they tend to reproduce similar nervous 
disturbances which are accompanied in consciousness by a re- 
instatement of the impressions in the form of an idea. It is 
in this sense only that we may speak of the retention of ideas. 
. . . The ideas as such have ceased to exist; but the brain 
structure has been modified in such a way that under appropriate 
conditions similar ideas will be again produced." 2 

1 James, Principles of Psychology, vol. i, p. 105. 

2 Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 106. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 331 

It should be added, however, that the foregoing is but an 
analogy, and most analogies are more useful for their sugges- 
tiveness than for the exact description of facts. The phono- 
graph record lacks the real essentials of organic memories. 
There is no organic tendency to persist in a given condition after 
a record is made. Repetition of the same stimulus does not 
increase the impression made, or make it more lasting. The 
lapse of time leaves it unchanged if kept from the elements. In 
the case of the phonographic records, if a series of impressions 
(b) are superadded to the impressions (a) , the impressions (a) are 
lost forever. There is no possibility of their reproduction in 
the sense that experiences are reproduced in memory. But in 
all organic memories there is a something within, we call it self- 
activity, that tends to arouse the same tracts and to increase the 
impressions. This is found true even in the bacteria exhibiting 
the "stimulus-maintaining or circular reaction." It is also 
true of human beings when the mind tends to think over what it 
has experienced. We have also noted that images may be 
awakened from within. This is impossible in the phonograph. 
Its substance is inert, lifeless. Organic tissue has what we call 
life — that which retains, revives experiences, and makes for 
progress. Evolution would be impossible without organic 
memory. A good illustration of organic memory without con- 
sciousness is seen in the phenomena of scars. Though the en- 
tire tissue is many times renewed, yet the scar persists. This is 
merely because of the law of growth. In all living organisms 
there is a continual renovation or replacement of tissue, and 
the new growth, particle by particle, takes the place of the worn- 
out tissues. Small-pox pits and the marks of other infectious 
diseases frequently remain through life. Bend a twig, and you 
cause nutrition to be supplied in the malformed direction until 
it has completely grown to the new mode. 

Race Memories. — Every highly organized being that lives 
to-day is the resultant of the infinitude of complex modifica- 
tions that have been exerted upon all the beings that have pre- 
ceded it in its line of ascent. The changes have been more 



332 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

than kaleidoscopic, producing innumerable combinations; they 
have been cumulative, so that it has been impossible ever to 
return exactly to the original state. Each stimulus leaves an 
addition besides a new combination. In multitudes of cases 
the combined resultants have so arranged the constituents that 
new forces have been able to cause the organism to vibrate in a 
new direction. Witness the development of the eye and the 
optical centres in the ascending scale of animal evolution. The 
cumulative memories of sensori-motor adjustments in this case 
produced a new potentiality or power. On the other hand, 
evolution may be regressive. Organic dispositions or vestiges 
may become so overgrown through disuse, or through the ac- 
centuated use of some other function, that the possibility of func- 
tioning in the given direction may become entirely obsolescent. 
Notice the decadence of the power of sight in the mole and many 
cave animals. Vestigial organs, as the vermiform appendix, 
the gill slits in the neck, or atavistic recrudescences, also attest 
the life in far-off ages still struggling to reproduce itself through 
organic memories. 

Not only structure but function gives evidence of the cumula- 
tive race memories. The chick possesses at birth wonderful 
powers of perceptive co-ordination such as we know could not 
be attained in its lifetime. Neither were they learned during 
the period of incubation. They were accumulated during the 
lifetime of countless generations of which a given chick is a de- 
scendant. These ready-made powers we call instinct. But, in 
other words, they are inherited neural memories awaiting ex- 
citation by racially familiar stimuli. The question will, there- 
fore, naturally arise here as to why man with his wonderfully 
expanded memory does not exhibit more racial memories. This 
subject is more fully treated in the chapter on Instinct, and it 
will merely be remarked here that it is because of the exceeding 
complexity of man's memories that they are not evidenced in- 
stinctively. Furthermore, most of our important memories are 
never awakened in exactly the same character in which they 
were registered. They are awakened only as totalities, and not 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 333 

as individual experiences. In individual life, to illustrate, man 
strives to remember not isolated details, but rather generaliza- 
tions — conceptual notions. We remember the content of con- 
cepts, without being under the necessity of clothing them in any 
particular form. Unfortunately the untrained person thinks of 
the form when memory is mentioned. But the form in which 
an idea is clothed is by no means the most important part of the 
memory. The trained psychologist, for example, can tell in- 
stantly, i. e., he can remember, the definition of "perception," 
but the chances are that he will not word it twice alike. Like- 
wise man has instincts or inherited dispositions for subjects or 
fields of activity rather than for the particular form of the subject 
or field of activity. Thus, man truly inherits a capacity for 
mathematics, but it may be put in arithmetical or geometrical 
terms, in English or Chinese characters. Similarly a capacity 
for music is inherited. If this is doubted by any one, let him 
try to teach a dog, a pig, or a monkey to compute, to sing, to talk, 
and see if he will not wish for hereditary tendencies to begin 
with. The entire discussion of instinct and heredity was a con- 
tribution to the subject of race memories, and consequently a 
brief paragraph in this connection is sufficient. 

Physiological Conception of Reproduction. — Physiologically 
the simplest case of reproduction of previous states is brought 
about when the nervous system is awakened by the same stimu- 
lus which gave rise to the original mental state — sensation, 
perception, etc. That is, recall or remembering, physiologi- 
cally considered, is simply the reinstatement of processes which 
have been experienced at some antecedent time. Thus, if a 
stimulus a has impinged upon an end organ with a certain 
rapidity of light or sound vibrations, or with certain mechanical 
or chemical reactions, in such a way as to produce a given mental 
state A, theoretically, in its last analysis, to recall A at some fut- 
ure time the stimulus a must be repeated, when it will give rise 
to a mental state A \ This second state would be so similar to A 
as to be interpreted as identical with it. In truth it cannot be 
exactly the same, for the nervous system receiving and recording 



334 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the impression is not the same as it was when'it received the im- 
pression interpreted as A. Again, let us say that the nervous 
system which received the stimulus a had been in its history 
disturbed by a number of shocks producing a resultant which we 
will designate as N. Therefore, if b impinges upon the end 
organ, it will be the nervous system iV+the effect from a instead 
of N which reacts to the stimulus b. This conclusion must 
follow our acceptance of the physiological interpretation of the 
doctrine of apperception, or the doctrine of the conservation of 
energy. 

On the general physiological aspect of retention and repro- 
duction Kay writes: "It seems highly probable, then, that the 
recalled sensation or idea is occasioned by a repetition of the 
same form of motion as attended the original sensation. The 
sensation of red is produced by a certain kind of motion, and 
the idea (memory) of red is in all probability produced by 
the same kind of motion. This doctrine is as old as Aristotle, 
who viewed the representations of memory or imagination 'as 
merely the movements continued in the organ of internal sense 
after the moving object itself has been withdrawn.'" * Spencer 
says: "To recall a motion. just made with the arm is to have a 
feeble repetition of those internal states which accompanied the 
motion — is to have an incipient excitement of those nerves which 
were strongly excited during the motion." 2 Ribot alsb main- 
tains that the nervous processes in perception and remembrance 
are the same. He cites the well-known experiment of Wundt, 
who found that the mere remembrance of a color produced the 
same fatigue and also, what is more striking and conclusive, that 
the same complementary color appeared as when fatigued from 
viewing the original. Baldwin, in his discussion of the physical 
basis of memory and association, says that memory on the bodily 
side is "the reinstatement in the nervous centres of the processes 
concerned in the original perception, sensation, etc. ... So the 
function of the reinstatement of processes in .the act of memory 

1 Memory: What It Is and How to Improve It, p. 31. 

2 Quoted by Kay, op. cit., p. 31. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 335 

is, in respect to the tendency to action which these processes 
arouse, exactly the same as that of the processes of percep- 
tion, sensation, event, which furnished the original of the 
memory." * 

Myriads of ideas received will never have all the conditions 
for their recall repeated. Either similar stimuli will not occur, 
or they will not be suggestive because of their weakness or be- 
cause of long lapse of time. This explanation suffices, how- 
ever, for the reproduction of only the most simple and elemental 
states. Were this the sole condition of reproduction, we should 
be limited to those ideas in which the original stimulus re- 
appeared. Our mental lives would be exceedingly circum- 
scribed and simple, even though a certain number of "circular" 
or "stimulus-maintaining reactions" occurred as are explained in 
the chapter on imitation. Psychical life would scarcely rise to the 
dignity of perceptive consciousness, for all our perceptions are 
complexes formed out of multiple associations. These associa- 
tions are at the basis of our complex memories, and explain how 
a given object of consciousness may be recalled without the 
necessity of the presence of the original stimulus. In per- 
ception a given object of thought becomes associated with di- 
verse other objects as a, b, c, d, e,f, etc., which are similar, con- 
tiguous, contemporary, a part of, etc., and the presence of a 
stimulus which causes the reinstatement of any one of the elements 
of the series at once awakens nerve-tracts which have previously 
been discharged along with the given one, and there is a tend- 
ency for all the others to be discharged. Which one is ex- 
ploded will depend upon the frequency, recency, contiguity, etc., 
of previous associations. This will all be explained in the dis- 
cussion of association, and needs here to be merely suggested. 

Persistence of Memories. — "How long do memories persist?" 
is a pertinent question, and one frequently raised. In the fore- 
going discussion it has virtually been assumed, though rather 
disguised, that impressions once made persist throughout the nor- 
mal life of the individual. We shall here attempt to show that 

1 Mental Development, p. 280. 



336 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

this is true, and even go beyond that to assert that they are as 
eternal as the life of the individual. If life is propagated, the 
memories tend to persist in the progeny. This need not startle, 
for it is only a corollary of the doctrine of heredity. Ordinarily 
the theory of heredity considers only the persistence of race 
habits, but it must be understood that memories are transmitted 
even though they have not attained to the definiteness, and to the 
reflex stage, of habits. 

I fancy the reader will here interpose a question, as several 
hundreds of my students have done. They say, "How can it be 
that memories are permanent? Our experiences tell us that we 
forget myriads of things. One who never forgot would be more 
than a prodigy: he would be superhuman." Just a moment. 
I have not asserted that things are not forgotten. My own dis- 
comfiture on forgetting the spool of thread or the marketing, 
or to mail my letters; my embarrassment on awkwardly trying 
to recall the name of a student whom I have previously met; my 
careful avoidance of calling certain people by name, because I can 
not think of the right one: all these and scores of other cases 
would readily rise up to contradict such a statement, if ever I 
should make one. But I have not said that we never forget. 
I have said that memories are permanent, in the sense that the 
records are ineffaceable. It, however, has not been asserted 
that all experiences can be recalled. It is not contended that all 
memories are complete. The point intended to be made here is 
that every experience, no matter how great or how small, how 
significant or unimportant, enters into the complex of one's life and 
tends to bias his conduct ever afterward. Every thought, every 
emotion, every impulse, no matter how noble or ignoble, how 
uplifting or debasing, how idle or important, leaves its inefface- 
able trace. The student goes from the class-room a different 
individual from what he entered; his contact with his teacher 
has influenced him for good or for ill, imperceptible though it 
may be. These are solemn thoughts, disturbing to the one 
whose experiences have been unfortunate; reassuring to the one 
with more happy experiences. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 337 

Biological Conception of Recall and of Forgetting. — It has 

already been shown that whenever a stimulus re-traverses the 
same path which it has before traversed, the process of reproduc- 
tion takes place. If the previous impression was strong enough, 
vivid enough, and if sufficiently recent, it is recognized as a 
former experience. In this case there is complete memory. 
But the conditions for reawakening the same nerve-tract are 
that the same or a very similar stimulus must impinge upon the 
end organ, or that a stimulus must occur which will arouse 
tracts or centres which have been associated with the given centre. 
As James says, " The cause both of retention and of recollection 
[reproduction] is the law of habit in the nervous system, working 
as it does in the association of ideas." And again, "The ma- 
chinery of recall [reproduction] is thus the same as the ma- 
chinery of association, and the machinery of association, as we 
know, is nothing but the elementary law of habit in the nerve- 
centres." In another place, in speaking of the processes going 
on he says: "When slumbering, these paths are the condition of 
retention; when active, they are the condition of recall." l By a 
path all we mean is, that a certain arrangement of molecular 
structure has taken place so that nerve currents are conducted 
from one centre to another with greater facility than before the 
rearrangement. We know, for example, that currents travel 
better lengthwise of the nerve fibres than crosswise. Through 
ages these have become good paths of conduction. The associa- 
tion fibres of the brain and the phenomena of association teach 
us that homogeneous tissues have to become differentiated be- 
fore they become very efficient. 

A great variety of changes is produced by the numberless 
incoming stimuli which are continually impinging upon the end 
organs. After a given stimulus a has affected the neural sub- 
stance and opened a tract a > x, usually before the same 

stimulus is repeated and deepens the impression, many stimuli 
of a different character have modified the nervous structure in 
such a way as partially to rearrange the tract a > x. It may 

1 Principles of Psychology, vol, I, pp. 653-655. 



33 8 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

be that the molecular structure is rearranged so that a new tract 

b > y crosses through the tract a > x. Suppose these, 

in turn, to be influenced by many other stimuli. A "modified 
modification," which may be represented in a purely diagram- 
matic way by the accompanying figure, finally results from the 
action of all the combined stimuli. Because of these modi- 
fications by new impressions from without and from the neural 
changes brought about by associations from within, many im- 
pressions, sooner or later, will become so obliterated that they 
can never be recalled. However, if we believe in the conserva- 
tion of energy and in apperception, we must conclude that every 




Fig. 20. — Diagrammatic representation of neural 
effects produced by manifold stimuli. 

impression has modified the nervous system in such a way that 
every new impulse must take a different path because of it. 
The pail of water is molecularly different after the addition of 
each drop, even though no molar change is perceptible. In 
fact, does not the law of gravitation teach us that every change in 
every particle of matter in the universe affects every other par- 
ticle? Under certain conditions, explained under "degenera- 
tion and revival," memories apparently completely obliterated 
may be reinstated.. 

There are many facts of psychic life that help to prove the 
theory of the permanent retention of these once-made nerve- 
tracts, which we may assert have permanent possibilities of re- 
call. To illustrate, how many of us have revived memories of 
scenes and events long since forgotten, judged by ordinary tests, 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 339 

by going back to the places where the impressions were gained ? 
Going back to childhood's home after long years of absence 
brings a flood of recollections that never would have been re- 
vived had it not been for the proper stimuli. Those things were 
learned in connection with certain associations, and the old 
stimuli, or their associates, are absolutely necessary for their 
recall. If the impressions have been vague or fleeting, even the 
presence of the stimuli would not serve to revive the memories. 
An important pedagogical truth may be drawn from these facts. 
Children learn their lessons in a particular order, or in a par- 
ticular way. The teacher often asks questions on the lesson 
which, though pertinent and intelligible to older people, have no 
meaning to the children and do not serve as "suggesting strings," 
to use Carpenter's phrase, in reproducing the lesson. The 
teacher must take care to question and to extend explanations 
in the same lines of association as are in the children's minds. 
Otherwise discouragement will come frequently, because the re- 
sults seem so poor. For small children at least, and probably 
all through the college course, the one who teaches the class, not 
an outsider, should be the examiner. The superintendent is 
liable to ask questions in an entirely different way and no "sug- 
gesting strings" are pulled. Even in college oftentimes I ask a 
question which is an application of something the students have 
learned. I get no response, and gradually change the ques- 
tion. All at once some student exclaims, "Why, yes; I knew 
that all the time!" No "suggesting string" was at first pulled. 
Great care is necessary in setting examination questions, even 
in high school and college. The questions should be so framed 
that they will be sure to suggest the line of answers desired. 
When a question is carelessly constructed the student frequently 
guesses at its meaning, and often writes on another question. 
The more advanced the student, the more general, of course, 
may be the question. 

Revival after Long Lapses. — Carpenter 1 says that "There is 
very strong physiological reason to believe that this 'storing-up 

1 Mental Physiology, pp. 436 et seq. 



340 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of ideas' in the memory is the psychological expression of 
physical changes in the cerebrum, by which ideational states are 
permanently registered or recorded; so that any 'trace' left by 
them, although remaining so long outside the 'sphere of con- 
sciousness' as to have seemed non-existent, may be revived 
again in full vividness under certain special conditions — just as 
the invisible impression left upon the sensitive paper of the 
photographer is developed into a picture by the application of 
particular chemical re-agents. For in no other way does it seem 
possible to account for the fact of very frequent occurrence, that 
the presence of a fever-poison in the blood — perverting the 
normal activity of the cerebrum, so as to produce delirium — 
brings within the 'sphere of consciousness' the 'traces' of 
mental experiences long since past, of which, in the ordinary 
condition, there was no remembrance whatever. Thus, the 
revival, in the delirium of fever, of the remembrances of a lan- 
guage once familiarly known, but long forgotten, has been often 
noticed." Dr. Carpenter supports his theory by citing a num- 
ber of cases gleaned from prominent medical authorities, some 
of which are here subjoined. "An old Welsh man-servant, who 
had left Wales at a very early age, and had lived with one branch 
or another of this gentleman's family for fifty years, had so en- 
tirely forgotten his native language, that when any of his Welsh 
relatives came to see him, and spoke in the tongue most' familiar 
to them, he was quite unable to understand it; but having an 
attack of fever when he was past seventy, he talked Welsh 
fluently in his delirium. ... A Lutheran clergyman of Phila- 
delphia informed Dr. Rush that Germans and Swedes, of whom 
he had a considerable number in his congregation, when near 
death always prayed in their native languages; though some 
of them, he was confident, had not spoken these languages for 
fifty or sixty years." 

"The following case, mentioned by Coleridge, is one of the 
most remarkable on record : its distinguishing feature being that 
the patient could never have known anything of the meaning of 
the sentences she uttered: . . . 'In a Roman Catholic town in 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 341 

Germany, a young woman, who could neither read nor write, 
was seized with a fever, and was said by the priests to be pos- 
sessed of a devil, because she was heard talking Latin, Greek, 
and Hebrew. Whole sheets of her ravings were written out, 
and found to consist of sentences intelligible in themselves, but 
having slight connection with each other. Of her Hebrew 
sayings, only a few could be traced to the Bible, and most 
seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick was out of 
the question; the woman was a simple creature; there was no 
doubt as to the fever. It was long before any explanation, save 
that of demoniacal possession, could be obtained. At last the 
mystery was unveiled by a physician, who determined to trace 
back the girl's history, and who, after much trouble, discovered 
that at the age of nine she had been charitably taken by an 
old Protestant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, in whose house 
she lived till his death. On further inquiry it appeared to have 
been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a 
passage of his house into which the kitchen opened, and to read 
to himself with a loud voice out of his books. The books were 
ransacked, and among them were found several of the Greek and 
Latin Fathers, together with a collection of Rabbinical writings. 
In these works so many of the passages taken down at the young 
woman's bedside were identified, that there could be no reason- 
able doubt as to their source.' " * 

The words of Dr. Carpenter confirm this view. He says: 3 
"As our ideas are thus linked in 'trains' or 'series,' which 
further inosculate with each other like the branch lines of a 
railway or the ramifications of an artery, so, it is considered, an 
idea which has been 'hidden in the obscure recesses of the 
mind' for years — perhaps for a lifetime — and which seems to 
have completely faded out of the conscious memory (having 
never either recurred spontaneously, or been found capable of 
recall by volitional recollection), may be reproduced, as by the 
touching of a spring, through a nexus of suggestions, which we 

1 Biographia Literaria, edit. 1847, vol. I, p. 117. 

2 Mental Physiology, p. 429. 



342 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

can sometimes trace out continuously, but of which it does not 
seem necessary that all the intermediate steps should fall within 
our cognizance." Carpenter quotes a paragraph from Dr. 
Abercrombie's records to substantiate his position. "A lady, 
in the last stage of chronic disease, was carried from London to 
a lodging in the country : — there her infant daughter was taken to 
visit her, and, after a short interview, carried back to town. 
The lady died a few days after, and the daughter grew up 
without any recollection of her mother, till she was of mature age. 
At this time she happened to be taken into the room in which her 
mother died, without knowing it to have been so: — she started 
on entering it, and, when a friend who was with her asked the 
cause of her agitation, replied, ' I have a distinct impression of 
having been in this room before, and that a lady who lay in that 
corner and seemed very ill, leaned over me and wept.' " ■ 

An extended purposive study of early memories, made by 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, 2 gives many definite examples illustrat- 
ing the theory just advanced. He writes: "I undertook, as a 
vacation diversion, a more or less systematic exploration of all 
the farms I had ever known, noting on the spot everything re- 
membered from early boyhood. I climbed in through the 
windows of abandoned houses and explored them from roof to 
cellar in quest of vestiges; sat alone sometimes for hours trying 
to recall vanished spots, and to identify objects which I knew 
must have once been familiar. Thus during the month I noted 
between four and five thousand points, sometimes revisiting the 
same scene to observe the effects of recurrence, and from it all I 
gathered some general impressions of memory, quite new to 
me." On the first farm visited he had lived during the first 
two and one-half years of life. Although he had driven past it 
several times, he had not been upon the place for nearly fifty 
years. He states that thousands of memories were revived by 
the recurrence of once-experienced stimuli and their associates. 
Space will permit recounting but a few of them. 

1 Intellectual Powers, 5th ed., p. 120. 

2 "Note on Early Memories," Pedogogical Seminary, 6: pp. 485-512" 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 343 

Out of all of the very many objects and incidents that were 
impressed upon his mind as a child, almost nothing was defi- 
nitely recalled. The only clear and distinct memory was of a 
red, upright, wooden spout with a wheel attached, through 
which he had poured water. Of this object he had often 
thought. Another memory, certain though indistinct, was 
revived by "the rocky end of a knoll" with which there "came 
an almost imperative association of cows being milked by a 
woman." He found that the hired man's wife had milked the 
cows there. But there were many associations that bore marks 
of familiarity, of which he writes: "I have little doubt but that 
if I had met that ensemble of landscape features unexpectedly in 
some far country I should have been struck by some reverbera- 
tions of reminiscence perhaps akin to those Plato connected with 
a previous state of existence." Not only were old places recog- 
nized, but many incidents once associated, but now no longer 
present, were recalled. Who has not had a strange feeling of fa- 
miliarity in some locality or with some occurrence to which he 
believes himself a stranger? It may have proved to be a real 
memory or it may have been merely a similar experience serving 
to recall old experiences. "A kind of open glen in the woods, 
for instance, recalled nothing, but gave a very extraordinary and 
unwonted sense of pleasure and of previousness. On coming 
to a knoll upon a vast heap of stones near trees I found myself 
articulating, 'Why yes, of course there was something like that.' 
. . . The sudden smell of catnip, the gloominess of an old wall 
of very black stones, a deep well beneath the kitchen, the 
abundant and peculiar moss on the ledges, were other things 
that brought a distinct sense of familiarity but no trace of any- 
thing like memory." 

Degeneration and Revival. — The revival of memories depends 
upon stimuli suitable and sufficient to make old paths function. 
Many memories may never be reinstated for the lack of such 
stimuli. The reinstatement of memories in old age and in sick- 
ness will not be so readily understood, and may need argument 
to convince. That such occurrences arise, many facts attest. 



344 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Examples of such have been quoted above. Why these occur 
remains to be explained. It is a well-established neurological 
law that in degeneration of tissues during disease or old age the 
first tissues to disintegrate are those most recently formed; while 
the older, first-formed are the last to be attacked. This is 
easily explained by reference to purely physical and chemical 
laws. A substance that is simple is relatively stable, while those 
which are more complex are correspondingly unstable, and the 
more complex the substance the more liable to disintegration. 
Thus we see that the nervous tissue, being exceedingly com- 
plex, is the most unstable compound in existence. It is, 
in fact, so complex that no chemist feels safe in asserting the 
definite composition and atomic relationships. Here we see 
why nervous tissue is peculiarly fitted structurally for the func- 
tions which it subserves. Compare it in composition and 
function with fat or muscle. Were the nervous tissue not so 
thoroughly protected it would be the first tissue to go into dis- 
solution. Of the nervous system itself medical authorities tell 
us that the first part to be attacked in disease is the cerebrum, 
the medulla and pons following next, while the cord is the 
last to be attacked. This law is known as that of descending 
degeneration. 

We have already mentioned that in disease many of the most 
recent impressions are entirely forgotten, while others that are 
remote and early formed are perfectly fresh and remarkably 
vivid. It is also well known that in old age the early memories 
are the ones that persist. Old age is a form of disease. It im- 
plies descending degeneration in a large sense. Life disintegrates 
until only the so-called second childhood is left. Putting to- 
gether the law of descending degeneration and the perfectly ob- 
vious facts of the return of old memories and the loss of recent 
ones, we know that the given order of psychical decay ensues be- 
cause the neural structures formed by the most recent psychoses 
are the first to decay. As previously mentioned, the newer 
structures act as inhibitors or insulators of nervous material, 
preventing the flow of nervous energy in certain directions. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 345 

These later structures become diseased, the inhibiting force is 
removed, allowing the older structures opportunity to function 
again. This they do if suitable stimuli are presented. These 
stimuli may come from within or from without. The old man 
may not think continually of the scenes of his boyhood, but just 
give him the cue and see how the ideas will cause the awakening 
of slumbering brain-tracts and in turn how the old neuroses re- 
instate old psychoses. Habits are the last functions to be for- 
gotten. There are two reasons for this : (a) The processes have 
been so long and frequently continued that the neural structure 
has grown to that mode, (b) The spinal cord is the oldest for- 
mation of the nervous system in racial development — funda- 
mental — and hence the last to succumb. When all other 
functions are deranged and unbalanced in the nervous wreck 
or in the demented, the early habits still persist intact. In the 
decline of memory during old age or in nervous debility, proper 
names are the first to be lost. They are special — accessory — 
used only occasionally, and largely recently learned, and hence 
their application is seldom automatic. Other words are so 
habitually used that the chain of sounds becomes automatically 
reinstated. 

Individual Differences. — There are very great differences of 
memory among individuals. There are persons who acquire 
readily, but forget quickly; those that acquire with difficulty, 
but retain accurately and tenaciously. Again, there are fortu- 
nate persons who acquire easily and retain with great persistence 
and fidelity, as well as some who work hard to acquire only to be 
chagrined on having what is learned evaporate almost as soon as 
learned. When one remembers things learned through a given 
sense better than what is learned through the other senses, we say 
he has a certain " type" of memory. There are types of memory 
corresponding to all of the senses. Some persons possess one 
type, some another. Again, there are persons who have memo- 
ries that vary within the realm of a given sense. There are also 
all degrees of variations, from the special power of remember- 
ing remarkably, certain words, certain forms, certain sounds, 



346 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

or certain colors, up to the very exaggerated cases which we 
find in abnormal persons, or the mathematical, musical, and 
other "prodigies." 

There are also differences in the same individual at different 
stages of development. Children are usually thought to have 
better memories than adults. This view is hardly correct, 
however. Children's memories are different from adults'. 
Children acquire, even mechanical associations, more slowly 
than adults. They retain mechanical associations better when 
once learned, but adults retain thoughtful associations better. 
Both the power of registering and retaining thoughtfully increase 
up to about twenty-five years. The powers are relatively sta- 
tionary then until about fifty, when a gradual decline sets in. 1 
These various differences suggest a recognition of different 
methods of teaching children of different ages, and also an 
adaptation of means and methods for persons of different mem- 
ory types. Further discussion of the subject will be found in 
connection with the treatment of individual differences, memory 
training, and of imagination. 

What Experiences Are Remembered. — Of how great intensity 
must sensations or perceptions be in order to be remembered 
is a question that naturally rises. No stimulus produces much 
of a sensation until of sufficient intensity to rise above the 
threshold, i. e., to enter into consciousness. The threshold 
differs for different senses and in different persons. Vibra- 
tions of a sounding body must be as rapid as eight or ten per 
second, and for most persons as high as twenty-four per second, 
in order to produce a sensation. Beyond fifty thousand a sec- 
ond they can no longer be detected. However, it is quite prob- 
able that many stimuli which do not produce recognizable sen- 
sations have some effect upon the nervous organism and upon 
the mind. And just as every physical influence in the course of 
evolution has modified things within its scope, so we believe 
that all stimuli of sufficient intensity to modify nervous matter or 

1 See Meumann, Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Experimented Padagogik, 
pp. 189-203. 



THE NATURE OF MEMORY PROCESSES 347 

mind in the least have left memories of their action. It is not to 
be supposed that all impressions of slight intensity, even though 
they attain the dignity of sensations, perceptions, or even more 
complex states, are necessarily recalled. They may be recalled 
in peculiar or abnormal conditions, or in hypnotic states, but 
even if too slight for recall under such circumstances, they color 
all our subsequent life and have their influence upon the general 
course of conscious memories. There are, in fact, exceedingly 
few things that are recalled exactly, or even need to be. But 
we may be certain that every influence to which we are subject 
leaves its "trace" upon our lives, and, of still more far-reaching 
importance, upon all posterity. As James remarks, "We are 
spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. 
Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little 
scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, 
excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't 
count this time ! ' Well ! he may not count it and a kind Heaven 
may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down 
among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, 
registering and storing it up to be used against him when the 
next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scien- 
tific literalness, wiped out. Of course, this has its good side as 
well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so 
many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and 
authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, 
by so many separate acts and hours of work." * Colgrove 2 writes 
on this point: "Perhaps that was not wholly a dream of De 
Quincey, Swedenborg, and Coleridge that the angels would 
come in the judgment day and take a complete record of our 
lives from the traces left in our bodies and nervous systems, and 
that by these we should be judged. If these are the books 
which are to be opened, a record trustworthy enough to deter- 
mine destiny will be found. Each record in itself makes des- 
tiny." Prof. Ewald Hering asserts in that pioneer work on the 

1 Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 127. 

2 Memory, pp. 167-169. 



348 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

newer theory of organic memory 1 that, "The conscious memory 
of man dies with his death; but the unconscious memory of 
nature is faithful and indestructible. Whoever has succeeded 
in impressing the vestiges of his work upon it, will be re- 
membered forever." 

1 Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter, p. 27. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE NATURE AND EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 
OF ASSOCIATION 

Illustrations of Mental Associations. — I walk by a certain 
building and suddenly find myself thinking about a friend whom 
I have not seen for years. Why should these thoughts dart 
into my mind so unceremoniously and unbidden? Even as I 
wrote the above sentence I suddenly found my mind wandering 
far away to a certain scene near my boyhood home which I 
have not seen for many years. Why should writing educational 
books be mixed up with my thoughts of boyhood episodes? 
Again, I recline in my easy-chair before the hearth and gaze into 
the fire with no particular thoughts in mind, and with only a 
comfortable unconcern. I indulge in day-dreams, and sud- 
denly, when aroused to full consciousness, I find that I have 
wandered to far distant places and to scenes and events long 
past. Why should the remote be so connected with the present? 
When I listen to a speaker, or when I read a book, I try to have 
my thoughts follow the line suggested by the speaker or the 
writer. When I follow out a particular line of thought of my 
own I also take a somewhat definite course marked out by the 
nature of the thinking or by my own former course of thinking, 
but when I allow my thoughts to wander I find them taking 
strange and devious paths. 

In all these and similar cases, the particular ideas are called 
into consciousness because of some chain of relations which we 
have previously forged in our minds, and because of some 
factor in our present experience which is also common to the 
chain of relations previously established. To illustrate, on 
coming to the university, I now recall that the last time I saw 
my friend we were standing in the doorway of a particular 

349 



350 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

building. The sight of the building was a stimulus which 
aroused a series of mental processes one of which was the idea 
of my friend. I had good cause to think of my friend in rela- 
tion to that building as we parted. Those two experiences, 
the idea of the building and of my friend, had been registered 
together in my consciousness at the time. The recurrence of 
any stimulus once experienced tends to revive memories of all 
events connected with it. The reason will appear plainer after 
considering the physiological basis of association. Again, as I 
wrote the word "friend" my mind at once and naturally re- 
verted toward some of my friends, and, for some reason, the par- 
ticular one thought of was a relative; probably because in form- 
ing friendships one most usually comes in contact with relatives 
first, and also much more frequently. Again, as most of my 
relatives now reside near my boyhood home, my thoughts at 
once turned in that direction. But while contemplating that 
closely related set of experiences, I notice that my mind flits from 
scene to scene, event to event, until I am far away from the 
original series. However, as I analyze the steps carefully I find 
that no new idea has arisen in consciousness which has not been 
previously related in my mind to that which suggested it. This, 
we may be sure, is true even though we may not be able to trace 
the various connections. This statement is warranted by ex- 
perimental evidence, and by the physiological basis of re'call in 
memory. 

If one hears a word, no ideas ever flash into mind that have 
never been associated with the word. The following experi- 
ment never fails to prove interesting and instructive to classes. 
Pronounce the following or other words and ask the class to 
write down, after each word is pronounced, the first word that 
comes to mind: George, president, superintendent, Manila, 
one, watch, Ivory Soap, Milwaukee. It is possible to predict 
what most of the words written will be. I have repeated the 
experiment many times, and have seldom been unable to 
trace the direct connection between the suggesting word and 
the recalled idea. Inasmuch as so many ideas are continually 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 351 

coursing through our subconsciousness, it is not difficult to un- 
derstand why curious and apparently unrelated ideas frequently 
arise. 

Illustrations of Physiological Associations. — The chains of 
associations thus far considered are all drawn from the realm 
of mental experiences; but associations are not limited to 
psychical processes. Mechanical muscular activities are learned 
by all animals. When the processes become deep-seated they 
are termed habits. In physical processes such as swallowing, 
winking, and walking, there is a definite relation between 
stimulus and reaction. Food entering the oesophagus is the 
stimulus for the contraction of certain muscles; the contraction 
of these muscles is the signal or stimulus to still other contrac- 
tions or relaxations. Stimulus becomes associated with reaction; 
reaction with other reactions, and so on. Thus various ele- 
ments become associated in the mere physical and neurological 
processes. In many physiological processes there is no men- 
tal element, e. g., in digestion, propulsion of the food in the 
alimentary canal, and in the circulation of the blood. The 
physiology of habit is explainable on exactly the same basis 
as the above mechanical muscular activities. Through activity 
there is produced a discharge of nervous energy in a par- 
ticular direction. This is repeated so often that the slightest 
stimulus of a certain sort effects a discharge of nervous energy 
in the given direction. Here we have an association between 
stimulus and nervous activity, between these and muscular ac- 
tivity, and also between each stage of muscular activity and 
the succeeding one. Even in plant life there is the same sort of 
association between stimulus and reactions, and between each 
stage in physical reaction and the next. These organic associa- 
tions thus lie at the basis of memories. This fundamental mean- 
ing of association is thus emphasized because it will be dis- 
cerned that it is of the highest pedagogical value in considering 
economical learning and memory. 

All our every-day habits depend upon motor reactions of a 
mechanical sort. Standing, walking, arranging one's clothes, 



352 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

opening and closing doors, avoiding obstacles, following habitual 
paths, holding one's book open to read, dipping one's pen in 
the right bottle, using knives and forks properly, etc., could 
not be carried on were these organic associations not properly 
established. Skill in games is reached only after effort in es- 
tablishing muscular co-ordinations (associations). Once estab- 
lished, it is necessary only to think of the end in view to awaken 
the entire sequence of processes necessary to accomplish the re- 
sult. Each step is the necessary stimulus to call the next step 
into activity. The associations formed in riding a bicycle or 
learning to dance are very largely physiological. Little men- 
tality needs to be put into either act. What there is belongs to 
the ideo-motor type. An obstruction is encountered with the 
bicycle. The muscles hit upon the successful method of ac- 
quiring control, and this co-ordination is remembered, not as a 
conscious process, because few could describe it, but it is re- 
tained as organic memory. 

Such school activities as writing, drawing, oral reading, and 
spelling, acquire perfection only after mechanical, organic as- 
sociations have been definitely fixed. The learning of one's 
mother tongue depends upon associations (a) between the idea 
and the word, (b) between the sound of the word and the move- 
ment of the vocal organs in producing the sound, (c) between the 
idea and the written or printed symbol, (d) between the sound of 
the word and the written or printed symbol representing it, (e) 
between each of these and the various qualities making up the 
idea. Halleck has given an excellent discussion of the com- 
plexity of association in understanding a simple object. In the 
same discussion he also shows clearly the necessity for a physical 
basis of association. 1 

The Physical Basis of Association. — Association cannot be 
clearly understood until it is studied from the physical and the 
physiological sides. From what was said concerning the physical 
basis of memory it will be recalled that when a given stimulus 
acts upon any part of the nervous system it produces a physio- 

1 Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 112. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 353 

logical change. This modification tends to be made permanent 
by the nutritive processes. Now, all perceptive processes are 
very complex and are the result of a fusion of numerous sensa- 
tions. To take a concrete example, let us consider the processes 
involved in forming the perception of an orange — the classic 
psychological fruit. The visual sensation representing the color 
becomes associated with the visual sensation representing the 
shape, each or both of these with the taste, the odor, the touch, 
and the sound when the orange is dropped or tapped or scratched. 
Sometimes it is the sensation of color which is connected with 
that of taste, sometimes that of taste with color; again the odor 
is perceived, and that associated with its sight or its taste. 
These and manifold other experiences are fused in developing 
the complete idea of the orange. Thus through experience each 
sensation has stimulated a flow of nervous energy from the seat 
of one class of sensations to that of another. This tends to fix 
the path in that direction and between these two centres. But 
in the process of becoming acquainted with (perceiving) any 
given object, these associations are made in many directions— 
and, if accurate, the more diverse the better the perception. Be- 
sides these we have the muscular sensation in saying the word 
orange, the auditory sensation in hearing it, the temperature 
sensation from touching it, the muscular sensation from lifting it, 
and possibly we may have written the word and thus have re- 
ceived added visual and muscular sensations. Subsequently when 
any particular stimulus is received from the orange, e. g., that of 
color, all the other centres involved are communicated with and 
the entire complex flashes into mind. The orange is not much 
of an orange until we have associated every sensation derived 
from it with every other one and have all combined. Helen 
Keller's percept of an orange lacks certain very important 
qualities. Her knowledge of the sky, and of many flowers, 
and of painting, is sadly incomplete. The association fibres 
of the brain are no myths. Because of their number and com- 
plexity in man he is able to form ideas that are exceedingly com- 
plex compared with those of the lower animals. 



354 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

We think of perceptions as being simple mental phenomena, 
but in reality they are very complex. I see before me an orange. 
What separate ideas have I of the qualities of the orange which 
enable me to recognize it ? In the first place I see only a patch 
of yellow color. What other qualities can I assert of the orange ? 
I know that it has a rough, grater-like skin, although I do not 
touch it. I can tell that the inside is made up of a pulpy mass, 
probably containing seeds, and full of juice, which will spurt out 
if pressed. I know the smell and the taste, also, so that I can 
revive them, or, at any rate, could tell whether you gave me an 
orange or an onion or a red-pepper. I can also image the 
weight of the orange. All these ideas always occurring together 
in my mind have become associated to make up my idea of orange. 
You speak the word orange, and what comes into my mind ? 
Why, some quality of the orange. Perhaps its color. It may 
be its odor, its shape, its feel, its weight. I get the odor, and the 
color, taste, and the other qualities come to mind. I see it and 
its name, and some of the other qualities are recalled. Why is 
this ? It is because all these ideas have become welded together 
so that when one is disturbed or stimulated all the rest in the com- 
plex tend to be awakened into activity. Titchener expresses 
this from the psychical point of view as follows: "All the con- 
nections set up between sensations, by their welding together into 
perceptions and ideas, tend to persist. A sensation which has 
once formed connections with other sensations cannot shake 
them off and be its own bare self again, — the bare sensation that 
it was when it entered for the first time into a perception, — but 
carries its connections with it; so that whenever it has a place in 
consciousness, the connected sensations tend to be dragged in 
also. This law is the law of the association of ideas ." * 

Definitions of Association. — We are now ready to give a some- 
what more formal definition of association. Whenever two or 
more experiences are registered together, the recurrence of one of 
them tends to revive the others with which it has been registered. 

Halleck has defined the process as follows: "Ideas or objects 

1 A Primer of Psychology, p. 130. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 355 

that have been before consciousness at the same time, and hence 
apperceived in the same mental state, tend afterward to suggest 
each other." l This definition is an excellent statement concern- 
ing conscious mental states, but it will be seen at once that it does 
not include subconscious mental states, and, still less, muscular 
and other organic associations. James has stated the case well 
in terms of cerebral physiology. He says: 2 "When two ele- 
mentary brain processes have been active together or in immediate 
succession, one of them, on recurring, tends to propagate its ex- 
citement into the other." This would express the exact condi- 
tions if the words "neural" or "organic" were substituted 
for "brain." That is what James implies, and definitely says 
in the expression: "There is no other elementary causal law of 
association than the law of neural habit." 3 And again when 
he says, "This ultimate physiological law of habit among the 
neural elements is what runs the train." 4 

Association and Suggestion. — What has been discussed by 
many writers as association is not really association at all, but 
suggestion. The discussions are somewhat as follows: "As- 
sociation is that process in reproduction by which past ideas are 
brought back through connection with something present in the 
mind." "Association of ideas is the means by which a succes- 
sive train of ideas arises." "Thinking about anything tends to 
make one think of something connected with it. This mental 
fact is called the association of ideas." 

Association is, however, instead of a process of recall, the 
process of registering the experiences together, of establishing 
relations among them. It is an explanation of the cause of recall. 
Because of the associations which were made at the time of 
registration, some object now in consciousness may serve as a 
stimulus to recall some idea or train of ideas. The fact serving 
as a recall-stimulus is a suggestion. But the nature of the recall 
and the order of the recall were determined by previous associa- 

1 Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 114. 

2 Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 566. 

3 hoc. cit. * Op. cit., p. 581. 



356 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tions. Association is a registration process rather than a recall 
process. 

The Direction of the Association. — Associations are the basis 
of habits, and as in habits, the activities in a chain of associations 
become linked together in such a way that the order becomes very 
definite. Everybody knows how quickly the alphabet can be 
repeated forward, and also that it takes longer to repeat it back- 
ward — how much longer we do not usually realize. Repeated 
experiments with college classes have shown me that it takes 
about three seconds to say it forward, and thirty seconds to say it 
backward. Great difficulty, and even painful tension, are ex- 
perienced by most persons who try to say it backward. Also, 
instead of proceeding smoothly and continuously from Z to A, 
they are obliged to go a little way, say to R, and repeat it for- 
ward, at the same time trying to build up an association in the 
opposite direction, and then repeat it backward. One who had 
committed a poem to memory would not attempt reversing the 
order of words. Only a few words can be spelled backward by 
most of us. The far-reaching importance of this principle is, 
however, too often unappreciated and violated. The teacher 
gives the child the combination 7 X 8 = 56, and is amazed 
when the child cannot tell that 8 X 7 = 56. The brightest 
children may happen to reverse the combination, and thus hit 
upon the right answer, while the rest fail and are called stupid. 
It is a case of pedagogical blundering on the part of the teacher 
rather than stupidity on the part of the children. 7 X 8 is not 
the same as 8 X 7, any more than c-a-t is the same as t-a-c. 
8 + 7 is not the same process as 7 +8; 36 -s- 9 is not the same 
as 36 -T- 4; h of 4 is not the same as 4 -5- 2, or 2 / 4 of 4. To make 
the child see the equivalences, and learn the different combina- 
tions, is a part of the teaching process. They are not usually 
seen by the child until pointed out. 

In teaching foreign languages this principle is frequently 
overlooked. The usual procedure in the translation method 
is to have the pupil look at the foreign word and then say the 
English equivalent. For example, the pupil looks at the word 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 357 

Knabe and says boy, M'ddchen and says girl, livre and says book, 
chien and says dog, etc. Is there any wonder that the pupil 
does not learn to speak the language readily? The chain of 
association has been from foreign printed symbol to native 
spoken word, instead of from object or idea to foreign spoken 
word. In many classes the pupils seldom read the German, 
always translating. Thus the ear never becomes accustomed 
to the sound of the foreign language. Still less are there associa- 
tions built up between idea, spoken foreign word, and printed 
foreign word. While in Germany, as a student, I noticed that 
many American students always tried to take notes in English 
on the lectures, given in German, of course. As a result, those 
students never learned to understand the lectures well. It is 
almost unnecessary to add that they never learned to speak 
German. They constantly heard one language and thought 
another. As a result, both processes were hindered. The 
students who went into the lectures and began taking down 
in German as much as possible, if only a single word or an 
isolated sentence, soon became accustomed to grasp the thought 
and to record it in the same language. Their progress was de- 
cidedly faster than that of those who resorted to translation 
methods. 

I have frequently tried the following experiment with classes: 
(1) A list of German words is given to be translated at sight into 
English. The time is taken and the number of mistakes is 
recorded. (2) A list of English words, equally long and of the 
same difficulty, is given to be translated at sight into German. 
The time necessary to translate the list from German into Eng- 
lish is always much less than when the translation is from 
English into German. The latter often takes twice as long, 
and more mistakes occur. The result is a perfectly natural one. 
Ease and rapidity of functioning is a consequence of frequent 
associations. The way in which experiences are registered de- 
termines largely the manner of their recall. The existence of 
this physiological and psychological law is the justification for 
treating association as a part of memory. From the practical 



358 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

stand-point of the teacher we are deeply desirous of having ex- 
periences assimilated in such a way that they may be service- 
able at subsequent times. The accuracy and facility with 
which they recur is dependent upon the manner in which they 
were recorded. 

Mechanical or serial associations are formed in learning such 
combinations as the alphabet, rhymes, jingles, or any combina- 
tion of words in a serial order. Any such process may be repre- 
sented by a-b-c-d-e in which a serves to call up b, b calls up c, 
c calls up d, etc. (See Fig. 30.) No given element can be 
called up easily save by the previous element as a stimulus. 
Ask a class suddenly what letter precedes m, and they are either 
very slow in answering, or give a wrong answer. Complex 
associations are formed when the order is not always the same, 

Or ^->'& - i n . 3 C *$.& >e >f— - >z 

Fig. 30. — Diagrammatic representation of mechanical or serial association. 

and when many elements become associated with each element. 
Not only are the elements as a-b-c, connected serially, but each 
element is connected with every other element. Each one of the 
given elements then serves as. a stimulus suggesting the recall of 
any and all of the others. The chances of recall are thus very 
greatly multiplied. 

The accompanying diagram (Fig. 31) may help to under- 
stand the effect of multiple associations. The various letters 
on the circumference of the circle may represent the various items 
of experience which become linked with each other in mani- 
fold relations. Gradually they group themselves around some 
central theme, represented by 0. The circumference may rep- 
resent the unification and binding of all into a unified, complex 
thought-whole. 

Laws of Association. — Most psychologists state several laws 
of association which are designed to show why certain ideas have 
clustered about them a series of certain other ideas. The 
explanations are usually based upon the character of external 
objects or the order in which they have been experienced by us. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 359 

Some of these laws are called those of contiguity (in space or in 
time) , similarity, contrast, cause and effect, etc. There is, how- 
ever, only one fundamental law of association, namely that of 
coexistence in experience. Experiences which have been 
registered together become associated and tend afterward to 
persist in the original relations. Chance coexistence in space 
or time, similarities, contrasts, or causal relations between phe- 
nomena do aid in making associations, but until the registra- 
tions are made there are no associations. Whenever any of 




FlG. 31. — Diagram representing a complex of associations 
and their unification. 



these factors produce or promote recall it can be assumed that 
some elements have previously been registered together. 

Purposive Associations. — In order to have things recalled it 
will not do to trust to chance associations that are expected to be 
formed because things may be near together in space or time. 
Every-day illustrations may be given to show that mere chance 
contiguity in space or in time is not sufficient to produce an 
association in the mind. A class of forty were asked to tell the 
number of the class-room in which they had assembled three 
times every week for six months. Not one was able to answer 
correctly. They were asked to draw a dog's foot and a hen's 
track as they appeared in the snow or in the mud. The drawings 
were far from accurate, some drawing three toes and some five 



360 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

toes for the hen's track. Those were objects of frequent casual 
observation, but because no attention had been paid to them, 
no definite associations had been formed. That the associations 
had not been formed better was no discredit, but it shows us 
that in all teaching associations must not be left to chance. By 
questions, by analysis, by careful explanations, and by requir- 
ing concentrated thinking, pupils must be led to form definite 
associations and not be passive recipients of isolated facts. 
Careful questioning produces new ideas, new combinations of 
thought, i. e., new associations, thus increasing the number of 
suggestions and the probability of recall. 

When a given idea has been associated with several others, it is 
of interest and importance to know which will be recalled when 
it comes before the mind. It is of still more immediate interest 
to know how to weld associations so that the experiences can 
best be retained and recalled when needed. Although the 
stream of thought is to a large extent determined by chance 
associations, it is also true that the most desirable associations 
are not made without conscious effort. The child, for example, 
gains in a desultory manner from his environment, many ideas 
about nature, art, social laws, and economic relations. The 
knowledge thus obtained is sometimes so much overestimated 
that it is not deemed necessary to study these facts and phe- 
nomena in a systematic way. While environment is exceed- 
ingly potent in shaping one's ideas, we must not forget that 
there are many with eyes who see not, with ears who hear not. 
The country boy with a vast wealth of natural phenomena all 
about him is too often completely deaf and blind to their rich- 
ness. It is not at all uncommon to find bright country boys of 
sixteen who do not know as many birds and other animals, trees, 
flowers, and varieties of rocks and soils, as the city high-school 
boy who had early in the grades been taught to observe these 
things. The country boy has wonderful possibilities, but is 
often without wise guidance. In order to produce associations, 
the more purposeful the effort, other things being equal, the 
better the associations will be made. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 361 

Vividness. — Events which have come to us in so striking a 
manner as to transfix the attention are indelibly impressed upon 
the mind. An accident, the first sight of the great ocean, the 
first trip to a metropolis, a visit to Mammoth Cave, a descent 
into a coal mine, a balloon ascension, a fright from an en- 
counter with wild beasts, or a railroad accident can never be 
forgotten by the one who has had the particular experience. 
Similarly it is not uncommon to be put into possession of cer- 
tain facts in such a way that they will never be effaced. The 
demonstrations in physics performed by a certain professor 
come back to me now in great detail, after the lapse of nearly a 
score of years since witnessing them. The first wonders of 
experimental psychology came to me so impressively that I could 
now tell every detail of the experiments performed more than a 
dozen years ago. Is it not a truer function of teaching to open 
up the wonders of the universe, both of nature and of art, with 
the utmost vividness, than to drill mechanically a traditional set 
of facts into pupils' minds? 

Ideas should be made as vivid as possible in order to estab- 
lish associations thoroughly. The advertiser seeks to arrest the 
attention and compel the mind to contemplate the thing ad- 
vertised. In order to do this, striking pictures, brilliant colors, 
bizarre figures and situations, are employed. Besides being 
designed to compel attention, a successful advertisement must 
set forth the most tempting features of the advertised wares. 
Enough must be given to make the observer curious to know 
more. The good teacher is a good advertiser. He presents 
ideas in striking ways and at opportune times so as to stimulate 
curiosity. 

Attention and Association. — Though the nervous system of 
the child is plastic and his senses keen, yet the majority of his 
perceptions leave little definite trace. This is because he can- 
not concentrate all his forces upon the facts under considera- 
tion, and because his ideas do not sprout out and become re- 
lated to all other germane ideas. Attention not only means the 
ability to focus the mind on a single point, excluding extraneous 



362 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ideas, but also the ability to secure a grasp on everything that can 
contribute to the complete understanding of the given idea. It 
is like the abilities of a strong executive. He must not only be 
able to work hard and effectively himself, but he must be able 
to marshal great forces to exert their utmost aid in the same 
direction. In a great act of attention the mind is not merely 
fixed in one direction, oblivious to all else, but it is searching this 
way and that to discover and establish all possible integral re- 
lations. The child's inability to attend is explained largely 
through his lack of apperceptive material. Therefore when we 
speak of attention as a factor in association we mean that 
associations are deepened thereby, and new ones formed, thus 
increasing the possibility of recall. The lowest sort of atten- 
tion is employed in strengthening mechanical associations, the 
higher in establishing thoughtful ones. The former is neces- 
sary in teaching the child to recognize word forms, to spell, or to 
fix the addition table and the multiplication table. As long as 
he is swaying about, looking out of the window, or counting his 
marbles, he cannot fix the word forms. He must be brought to 
see with sufficient attention to effect a change in his cerebral 
ganglia. On the other hand, in order to register ineffaceably 
algebraic principles and scientific truths, the attention must 
command all the individual ideas in such a way that they are 
apprehended and comprehended, until every appropriate re- 
lation is established. To accomplish this, each new fact must 
be scrutinized and made to fit into the system necessitated by 
all the kindred facts. This relating activity is coextensive with 
the higher form of attention, and ensures the most valuable 
associations. 

When there is an attempt to make artificial associations in a 
mechanical way, as in learning foreign languages, the names and 
locations of various geographical features, or a series of his- 
torical data, there is often no interest in the process, and the re- 
sults either become confused or soon disappear. Experiences 
do not become deep and permanent without undivided atten- 
tion. Genuine attention is only possible when there is a full 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 363 

headway of interest. Frequently insufficient time is given to 
make associations permanent. A flash-light may disclose an 
interesting scene, but before the mind has had time to dwell 
upon its contents it is passed by for another one. The suc- 
cession of views becomes confused. Similarly with the multi- 
plicity of things which often engage the school-child's atten- 
tion. He flits from study to study, and from topic to topic, so 
rapidly that no idea has a chance to be recalled or contemplated. 
When we consider the number of topics that a child is frequently 
expected to learn in history or geography in a year, the surprise 
is not that he forgets as many, but rather that he retains as many 
as he does. 

Repetition of what has been learned is an important factor, 
especially in mechanical memory. The association paths are to 
be deepened, and the oftener the ideas are recalled in the same 
order the better the retention. Here again the psychology of 
advertising has abundant suggestiveness. No one can help 
knowing the particular merits of Ivory Soap, Pears' Soap, 
Rubifoam, Sozodont, Peruna, Walter Baker's Cocoa, Swift's 
Premium Hams, Quaker Oats, or Heinz's Pickles. They have 
been inescapable. We encounter their compelling pictures and 
persuasive phrases in every newspaper and magazine. We 
cannot turn a street corner, or glance out of a car window, or 
even withdraw our glance to car interiors, without encountering 
some of these "ads." In season and out of season, whether 
we will or no we are bound to meet them. The teacher may 
well take a hint. Some of the arts most worth striving for can 
be taught by the same process. Take language, for example. 
How else will the child ever develop correct speech except by 
hearing it, seeing it, and feeling its power during every minute 
of the school day, and properly in the home ? The child who 
hears correct speech only in the language class will never acquire 
it thoroughly. Morals and manners must be taught in the 
same fashion as correct language. If good examples are adver- 
tised on Sunday only, the intervening week-days will obliterate 
all traces. 



364 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The Observance of Natural Relations is always an excellent 
means of fixing associations. The coexistence in time or space 
of objects or events that regularly occur in such relations, when 
observed, is an aid in fixing the association. This is true be- 
cause when once the relations are observed the coexistent factors 
are frequently brought before consciousness. Such phenomena 
as thunder and lightning, warm weather and growing vegeta- 
tion, cooling atmosphere and condensation of moisture, change 
of temperature with change of thermometric reading, being 
causally related, become easily impressed upon the mind when 
once the relationship is observed. However, as was previously 
pointed out, the mere fact that relationships exist between ob- 
jective things is no guaranty of their being observed and re- 
corded together. As further examples, it might be mentioned 
that the relation between forests and rainfall has only recently 
been observed; the circulation of the blood is a new dis- 
covery; the bacterial theory of disease not a half-century old. 
A pupil would be a long time independently discovering the 
relations between varieties of soils and adaptable crops; 
though when once understood they become indissolubly con- 
nected. Just so with multitudes of facts in geography, science, 
and history. 

The import of this paragraph is to emphasize the necessity 
of forming systematic, logical, and causal relations among 
series of facts rather than depending upon artificial associations. 
The natural relations are more apt to be forced upon the mind 
repeatedly. Too much of geography teaching and history teach- 
ing is made to depend upon absolutely mechanical associations, 
when everything could be presented in a connected series of 
thoughtful relations. There are some things desirable to learn 
which must be largely isolated, but the majority of all knowledge, 
whether in school or out of it, can be so grouped as to become 
woven into logical relations. People's names have no logical re- 
lation to their possessors, but when we come to know the indi- 
vidual thoroughly, his habits, his temperament, his home, his 
associates, and his capacity, the name becomes so complexly 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 365 

associated with the individual that a multitude of suggesting 
strings may be pulled, any one of which will recall the right 
name. The case is far different with the child in learning the 
list of capes on the coast of America, or the boundaries of each 
of the States. In these cases there is only one sort of associa- 
tion, and that purely artificial and mechanical. When the child 
learns rules in arithmetic or grammar without comprehending 
them, the associations are purely arbitrary and mechanical. 
When we shall have become entirely free from such atrocities 
committed in the name of education, a day of rejoicing may be 
proclaimed. 

Similarity of Objects. — It has been vigorously argued by some 
that here we have an elemental law, correlative with contiguity 
in experience or even still more basal. I regard it, however, as 
being reducible to contiguity in experience. That two things 
are similar is no evidence that they will become associated in 
our minds, or that the appearance of one will recall the other. 
These occur only after the similarity has been discovered and the 
relationship established. A gas-jet and a foot-ball are, in certain 
respects, similar to the moon, the former in luminosity, the latter 
in rotundity; but few would associate them unless the similarity 
had been pointed out and dwelt upon. If we employ the term 
similarity, we must make it include similarity of relations and not 
alone similarity of appearance. Thus, all vehicles are similar 
though they differ vastly in appearance. Similarity between 
governments, customs, physical processes, modes of transpor- 
tation, etc., would all be included. Correlative with the estab- 
lishment of ideas of similarities should be a search for contrasts. 
That this is frequently done is attested by the fact that we have 
built up in our minds many pairs of contrasted words, such as, 
good and bad, heat and cold, long and short. It could be 
shown, however, that these are built up only through experience. 
They do not become united spontaneously. 

Professor James repudiates the belief of the older psychol- 
ogists that similarity is an elementary law of association. He 
retains the term merely because of its traditional use, but rejects 



3 66 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



its former meaning. Titchener says i 1 " In the older psychologies 
we read of various 'kinds' of association: association by con- 
trast ('giant' suggests 'dwarf'), by similarity ('Dickens' sug- 
gests 'Thackeray'), by contiguity ('sea' suggests ' ships, ' because 
the two are seen together), by cause and effect (the riven oak- 
tree suggests the lightning that struck it), by means and end (the 
idea of keeping our clothes unspoilt suggests the taking of an 
umbrella with us when we go out) , and so on. It is clear, how- 
ever, from what has just been said, that these are not 'kinds' of 
association — there is only one kind — but merely forms of it, 
arranged for convenience under certain heads." The only 
reason why similar objects suggest each other is that each con- 
tains some elements which are common and which have been 
experienced before. Students have frequently said to me, 
"But we met an entire stranger A who reminded us of a friend 
B; how can this be explained by contiguity in experience?" 
The answer is as follows: 

Let the two persons be represented by the following scheme: 



m 
n 
o 
x 

y 

z 



B 



m 

c 

d 

e 

f 



m, n, o, e, f, etc., represent characteristic features of each person. 
The two persons, A and B, are different in all characteristics 
except one. Now, with what has this one characteristic, which 
you have seen in the stranger, always been associated? With 
A, and by the law of coexistence in experience it will now be re- 
ferred to its usual associates. The two wholes may never have 
been experienced together, but the single element common to 
both has been frequently experienced and always with A. 
Consequently, when again observed, even though in a new 
combination, B, it is immediately referred to the old familiar 
association series, A. Therefore the new whole, B, with the one 

1 A Primer of Psychology, p. 131. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 367 

familiar element suggests and serves to recall the old unit, A, 
which contains the one familiar element. 

Association in all Experiences. — When thinking of the peda- 
gogical applications of association we must not overlook the multi- 
tude of every-day associations that we do make and should make. 
Our search must not be for those extremely artificial associa- 
tions we sometimes make in the school work, like, for example, 
the association of the letters v, i, b, g, y, 0, r, with the arrange- 
ment of the colors of the spectrum, or "lower and lighter and 
heavier and higher" with the barometric record, or the year 
1066 with the six Johns. Every act of perception, every process 
of imagination, every complex memory process, involves the 
formation of associations, and also involves associations previ- 
ously made. Every recall in memory, every judgment we form, 
every act of reasoning, every emotional thrill that affects us, de- 
pends upon past associations. Association is no occasional visitor; 
it is an ever-present guest; is always with us, bidden or unbidden. 

When we learned to walk it was only by associating a certain 
amount of muscular tension in one part with a certain amount 
in another, the association of these with so much space covered, 
so many bumps received or avoided, and the co-ordinating of all 
these into the process of walking correctly, easily, automatically. 
Not until habit had perfectly established the associations and co- 
ordinations did the process become at all perfect. While the 
habit was in the making, the process was awkward. Learning 
to talk is but a process of learning to associate ideas of objects 
and actions, sounds of words, and muscular movements of the 
vocal organs. The child very slowly associates the object with 
the word as heard. Many repetitions are necessary to estab- 
lish the habit of thinking that connection. Still longer does it 
take to associate the movements of talking with the sound and 
the object. Learning a foreign language is a process of associa- 
tion, as are learning to read, to write, to spell, to sit, to skate, to 
dance, to know various objects and their uses. 

In fact, as James says: "Your pupils, whatever else they are, 
are at any rate little pieces of associating machinery. Their 



3 68 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



education consists in the organizing within them of determinate 
tendencies to associate one thing with another, — impressions 
with consequences, these with reactions, those with results, and 
so on indefinitely. The more copious the associative systems, 
the completer the individual's adaptations to the world." The 
function of the teacher "is mainly that of building up useful 
systems of association in the pupil's mind." x He writes further: 
"In working associations into your pupils' minds, you must not 




FlG. 32. — Diagrammatic representation of the associative relations between 
each element and every other element in a mechanical associative series. 

rely on single cues, but multiply the cues as much as possible. 
Couple the desired reaction with numerous constellations of 
antecedents, — don't always ask the question, for example, in the 
same way; don't use the same kind of data in numerical prob- 
lems; vary your illustrations, etc., as much as you can." 2 

In a train of mechanical associations it has been indicated that 
the association is directly between a given element and the one 
succeeding it, as a-b-c, etc. It should be noted, however, that 
there is a certain relation established between each of the ele- 
ments and all the others. This may be represented by the dia- 
gram (Fig. 32). It is the entire thought-train which is related, 
and not only the immediately adjacent elements. Were this not 
true, our memories would often play us queer tricks. Suppose we 
had memorized the two following lines as suggested by James : 



I, the heir of all 
For I doubt not through 






,in the foremost files of time. 



J>the ages/ 



/ 



\i 



one increasing purpose runs. 



1 James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, p. 82. 



Op. cit., p. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ASSOCIATION 369 

Were it not for the fact that each word is linked with the entire 
thought process, on recalling the lines we should be just as apt to 
switch from the first line to the second on reaching the common 
words "the ages." Sometimes such cases occur. I remember 
that I once switched from one oration to another, entirely differ- 
ent in content, but which had a sentence also used in the first one. 

Verbal Associations. — Although we employ words in all our 
higher trains of association, we often forget the indispensable 
part that they play in the process. In the section on thought 
and language it is shown that, although thinking may be car- 
ried on without words, the highest forms of thinking necessi- 
tate the employment of words. Much thinking is done by 
means of imagery. This is best exemplified in the case of the 
lower animals and mutes, though all normal human beings 
do much thinking in imagery. But only the lowest forms of 
thinking can be carried on without the use of symbols. Not 
only are the animals dumb because they are low in mental 
power, but they are low in mental power because they do not 
speak. Not only did man acquire language when he reached a 
certain stage of development, but his development was im- 
measurably furthered through this acquisition. Language is 
not only a means of expression, but a means of acquiring ideas. 
With the words or symbols are associated all the various ideas of 
sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, muscular tension, pleasure, pain. 
etc. Take the word ball, for example. The idea of ball in- 
cludes a great variety of impressions, such as size, color, hard- 
ness, and pain or pleasure in catching. The word ball connotes 
and symbolizes all those ideas. Without words ideas can only 
be experienced through imagery, a cumbrous process when so 
complex an idea as home, for instance, is taken. But with the 
word we have a representation of all the qualities and charac- 
teristics known to us. It is the tie that binds. It is thus a 
means of mental economy and renders possible the formation of 
concepts. 

From the stand-point of the pedagogy of association and mem- 
ory it is important to urge careful attention to the naming of in- 



370 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

dividual perceptual ideas, and also to the formation of accurate 
statements of conceptual notions. Oftentimes teaching pro- 
ceeds carefully enough in details, but stops short of concept 
forming and concept stating. The statement of the concept is 
the symbolic representation of the concept and stands for the 
whole complex of ideas connoted in the concept. The mind does 
not need to go over all the details, but is satisfied with the symbol, 
much as one is satisfied with a bank-note which only represents 
wealth. These trains of thought which can be imagined or 
built up through actual perception can be carried on without the 
use of language. But even in ideas that can be perceived or 
represented through imagery words play a most important role. 
Classification of ideas cannot progress far without recourse to 
words. All the parts of speech represent classified ideas. No 
matter whether a word is a common noun, a verb, or an adjec- 
tive, it represents a complex idea which is brought together under 
the general class and ticketed with a symbol. These processes 
of acquiring, arranging, and conserving knowledge are all proc- 
esses of association. The laws governing them must be un- 
derstood and followed if education proceeds economically and 
wisely. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

Upon few other technical questions is the layman so willing 
to deliver opinions as upon methods of improving memory. He 
does not feel it hazardous to do so, but regards his conclusions 
as incontrovertible. The usual advice is to memorize much, 
verbatim and mechanically. Set apart a portion of every day 
for committing verses, proverbs, speeches, or strings of dates. 
It is asserted that the gymnastics thus used will strengthen the 
memory, not only in the particular direction, but also equally 
as much in all other directions. It is assumed that the memory 
is a general power, capable of memorizing anything when once 
developed. On this theory "the memory organ" might be 
likened to a muscle, the fibre of which can be strengthened by 
general gymnastics. Let us investigate to ascertain the facts 
which have a bearing upon the question. 

Biological Interpretation. — In the first place, there is no single 
power of memory which memorizes everything. There is. no 
receptacle which stores all facts of life with equal fidelity. 
Memory is a dynamic condition produced through experience. 
It consists of functional relations established in the physical 
organism or in the mind, which may be awakened by appropri- 
ate stimuli. It is more appropriate to speak of memories than 
memory. This view is then opposed to the theory of general 
improvement through special training. James says that reten- 
tion " is a purely physical phenomenon, a morphological feature, 
the presence of these 'paths,' namely, in the finest recesses of the 
brain's tissue." And further, "memory being thus altogether 
conditioned on brain paths, its excellence in a given individual 
will depend partly on the number and partly on the persistence 
oj these paths. The persistence or permanence of the paths is 

371 



372 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

a physiological property of the brain-tissue of the individual, 
whilst their number is altogether due to the facts of his mental 
experience. Let the quality of permanence in the paths be 
called the native tenacity, or physiological retentiveness. This 
tenacity differs enormously from infancy to old age, and from 
one person to another. Some minds are like wax under a seal 
— no impression, however disconnected with others, is wiped 
out. Others, like a jelly, vibrate to every touch, but under 
usual conditions retain no permanent mark." * 

Lloyd Morgan says: 2 "Retentiveness is, in fact, to a large 
extent a psycho-physiological datum; something given in the 
brain-structure and mental character of each individual; some- 
thing which we can no more alter than we can alter the size of 
our heads, or to take what is perhaps a closer analogy, the size of 
our muscles. By careful use and training we may develop our 
muscles within the limits assigned to them by nature. So, too, 
by careful exercise we may perhaps develop our retentiveness 
within the limits assigned to it by nature." 

One of the most important discoveries concerning the memory, 
therefore, is that the native capacity for retentiveness in a given 
individual is unchangeable by training, and is only modifiable 
by a change of health, by changes in nutrition, and by changes 
incident to growth and development at different ages. This 
statement is not intended to mean that one cannot improve cer- 
tain factors of memory, or that memory as a means of acquisi- 
tion cannot be greatly enhanced. But the mere capacity for 
conserving impressions of a given intensity, duration, and with- 
out associations cannot be increased by training. This hypothe- 
sis has been tested at several times and seems now to be well 
established as a fact. 

Experimental Evidence. — Professor James mentions several 
experiments that were made in testing the validity of this 
hypothesis. He says : 3 " In order to test the opinion so confidently 

1 Principles of Psychology, I, pp. 655, 659. 

2 Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 107. 

3 Principle* of Psychology, I, pp. 666-668. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 373 

expressed in the text, I have tried to see whether a certain amount 
of daily training in learning poetry by heart will shorten the 
time it takes to learn an entirely different kind of poetry. Dur- 
ing eight successive days I learned 158 lines of Victor Hugo's 
'Satyr.' The total number of minutes required for this was 
131% — it should be said that I had learned nothing by heart for 
many years. I then, working for twenty odd minutes daily, 
learned the entire first book of 'Paradise Lost,' occupying 38 
days in the process. After this training I went back to Victor 
Hugo's poem, and found that 158 additional lines (divided ex- 
actly as on the former occasion) took me 151^ minutes. In 
other words, I committed my Victor Hugo to memory before the 
training at the rate of a line in 50 seconds, after the training at the 
rate of a line in 57 seconds, just the opposite result from that 
which the popular view would lead one to expect. But as I was 
perceptibly fagged with other work at the time of the second 
batch of Victor Hugo, I thought that might explain the re- 
tardation; so I persuaded several other persons to repeat the 
test." 

Dr. W. H. Burnham, who tried the same method, learned 
for 8 days previous to training 16 lines of "In Memoriam" 
each day. This required 14 to 17 minutes daily, average 14! 
minutes. As training he committed daily for 26 consecutive 
days Schiller's translation of the second book of the "iEneid." 
This afforded an entirely different kind of material from the 
preliminary test. Returning to "In Memoriam," he found 
the average time for 16 lines to be 14-H minutes — maximum 
20, minimum 10. Mr. E. A. Pease made a preliminary test 
on "Idyls of the King," then trained himself on "Paradise 
Lost" (length of time and daily amount should be given, but 
are not). The average time for a given number of lines in the 
6 days preliminary to the training was 14!^ minutes, for the 
test after training, 14I-JJ-. 

In order to bring the matter before my students in a concrete 
way, I persuaded two of them to undertake a series of experi- 
ments, covering in one case 35 days and in the other 50 days. 



374 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Five days in each case were taken for the preliminary tests, 5 
for the final tests for comparison, and 25 and 40 days respec- 
tively for the drill. The preliminary tests consisted in the 
memorizing of miscellaneous matter, such as lists of nonsense 
syllables, lists of figures, selections of poetry, pieces of prose of 
varying degrees of difficulty, one being from Harper's Fourth 
Reader and the other from Hering's Memory, a list of twenty 
titles of unfamiliar books, and the names on a series of bottles 
holding chemical reagents. Each test was concluded as soon 
as any fatigue was noticeable. They thus varied somewhat in 
length. Only one test of a kind was taken at a given sitting, 
and the tests were throughout so varied and unexpected in char- 
acter to the student that there was no possible chance for the 
effects of practice to enter into them. 1 Both of the students 
were unfamiliar with chemical nomenclature, and the labels 
were partly in words and partly in symbols, e. g., HN0 3 and 
Hydric Acetate. When learning the list of unfamiliar book 
titles, only the backs of the books were exposed, so as to shut 
out as many associations as possible of names with books. It 
was, however, rendered easier by the sizes and colors than a list 
merely written or pronounced. There were 25 nonsense sylla- 
bles in each list, and the number list contained 47 digits, ar- 
ranged so as not to be in a serial order. Each was to be learned 
as a separate number. Thus there were tests in which as many 
associations as possible were removed, lists in which as many 
association helps as possible were included, and then intermediate 
lists. (Instead of figures and letters, arbitrary characters and 
forms might perhaps have been given to be drawn, and arbi- 
trary sounds might have been uttered to be reproduced. This 
would have excluded association still more.) A list was re- 
garded as memorized when it could be repeated or written 
(as the student chose), with a minimum number of mistakes 
— omissions, transpositions, or substitutions. It would have 

1 In James's tests it seems as if practice on the preliminaries and finals might 
affect the results. He discredits two other series recorded by him in which the 
preliminary practice and finals occupied fifteen and sixteen days respectively. 
See Principles of Psychology, I, p. 667. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 375 

been interesting to determine how much could have been re- 
produced after certain lapses of time. This was contemplated 
in the beginning, but, in the press of other duties, after being 
only partially completed, had to be abandoned. 

One of the students, after the preliminary results, trained her- 
self for 40 days by committing for 20 minutes daily parts of 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam," learning the introduction and 17 
sections. The other student took for her memory gymnastics 
30 minutes daily of mechanical memorizing, which she was able 
to continue 25 days. She did not drill on one form of compo- 
sition, but alternated, according to interest, between prose and 
poetry. The final tests for comparison with the preliminaries 
were of the same kind and amounts, and given under the same 
conditions, as the preliminary tests. The lists of nonsense 
syllables, digits, book titles, chemical labels, etc., contained the 
same number as in the corresponding preliminary test, and the 
material for continuous discourse was from the same selections 
as used in the preliminary test. 

On comparing the results "before taking" and "after tak- 
ing," and considering all conditions, both of the students vol- 
untarily stated in written reports of the experiments that they 
believed James was right. In some parts of the tests subse- 
quent to the practice, slight gains were shown. In some others 
losses were disclosed, and in others no changes. The gains were 
more numerous, but the losses greater in amount than were the 
gains. For example, student A committed 267 words of poetry 
in 30 minutes before practice, and only 189 words of the same 
selection after practice. Student B committed 260 words of 
poetry in the same period before practice, and only 200 after 
practice. In one case 47 digits were learned in 15% minutes 
before practice, while it took only 10% minutes after practice. 
Neither the gains nor losses have any special significance. The 
gains are more noticeable in the purely mechanical forms where 
methods of learning could be standardized. The variations 
probably represent different conditions of the learner. The 
gains ought to predominate over the losses with no other influ- 



376 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ence than that of the discovery of the best methods of learning 
the particular kind of material. A slight gain from this source 
ought to be expected. Such gain would not contradict James's 
position. In all of the instances where gains were shown, the 
students explained that they had been able to acquire a peculiar 
knack or trick of grouping the materials. It was also true, in 
the same cases, that more mistakes and more substitutions oc- 
curred, and the subject did not feel so sure of the results. In the 
cases of the book titles both students said that it happened that 
a few partially familiar titles came in the second list and none 
in the first. 

Since James published his conclusions, which seemed some- 
what startling at the time, a great many experimental investiga- 
tions have been made under strictly scientific laboratory condi- 
tions. The most important of such investigations are indicated 
in the footnote. 1 While some of the results, especially those of 
Meumann, show that some gain follows after considerable prac- 
tice in memorizing a given kind of material, it is to be noted 
that the gains are usually found in connection with the purely 
mechanical types of memorizing. "It will also be seen," says 
Pillsbury, 2 " that there is a tendency for the gain to be greatest in 
material that is most closely related to that on which the practice 
was obtained." These might be expected, and indicate, not 
any special change in a general ability, or a transference, but a 
gain in the method of learning. Fracker found some slight 
gains in some tests, in others none. He is of the opinion that 
there is only a limited spread of training, and that all "trans- 
ference depends upon the nature of the imagery employed in 

1 Meumann, Arch. f. d. gesam. Psych., vol. IV; Grundfragen der Psych., chap, 
on "tibungsphanomene des Gedachtnisses," Leipsic, 1904; "Vorlesungen 
zur Einfiihrung in die Experimentelle Padagogik," Leipsic, 1907; Miiller u. 
Pilzecker, "Experiment. Beitrage zur Lehre vom Gedachtnis," Zeitsch. f. 
Psych, u. Phys. d. Sinnesorg., 1900; Binet et Henri, "La memoire des mots," 
Annee psychol., I, 1895; Bolton, T. L., "The Growth of Memory in School 
Children," Am. Jour, of Psych., 1892; Shaw, "A Test of Memory in School 
Children," Ped. Sent., 1896; Henderson, E. N., "A Study of Memory for Con- 
nected Trains of Thought," Psych. Rev., Monograph Sup., No. 5, 1903; Lobsien, 
" Uber das Gedachtnis, u. s. w.," Beitr. z. Psych, der Aussage, II, 1906. 

2 Educational Review, June, 1908. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 377 

practice, rather than upon any other factor." 1 The materials 
for the test, in all the investigations that have come to my notice, 
are quite similar for the practice and the comparisons. Meu- 
mann has been quoted widely by opponents of the position taken 
by James, because Meumann has found such definite gains. He 
attributes the main gain to similarity of elements in the different 
materials memorized, and to improvements in methods of learn- 
ing. He also believes that there was some training of a com- 
mon capacity for memorizing. Pillsbury 2 says, "This does not 
seem to me to be a necessary conclusion, for no one knows how 
the gain due to these secondary factors stands to the total 
amount of improvement. One cannot be sure, therefore, that 
all of the gain is or is not to be explained in terms of the change 
in these capacities that are generally assumed to be susceptible 
of training." The words of Meumann should be quoted in this 
connection. He asks the question whether Lernfdhigkeit (power 
of learning) or Behalten (retention) is the more modifiable by 
exercise? He answers: "The capacity for learning or acquir- 
ing! The power of retention appears more as a constant which 
is determined by the age and stage of development of the in- 
dividual. The capacity for learning, on the other hand, is a 
power which depends entirely upon habits of exercise, Reten- 
tion is conditioned by the gradual unfoldment of the native 
predispositions of the psycho-physical organism. Learning is 
more dependent upon the momentary influence of particular 
forms of exercise in acquisition." 3 

The every-day experiences of life ought to confirm the general 
idea that the effects of memory training are not very generalized. 
One has a given type of memory which is apparently very little 
changed through life. The one who "learns by heart" easily in 
childhood generally possesses the same type in adult life, and 
those children who acquire with difficulty, or who forget quickly, 
usually have the same traits when grown up. If training in 

1 Fracker, "On the Transference of Training in Memory," Psych. Rev., 
Monograph Sup., No. 38, 1908. 

2 Loc. cit. 3 Vorlesungen, p. 201. 



378 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

special lines produced general improvement, the lessons in 
arithmetic, geography, and history ought to modify the tend- 
encies to a marked degree. The scholar ought also to have 
a vastly better memory than the unschooled, but on matters of 
equal comprehension to both, the scholar possesses no advan- 
tage over the one without the long years of training. Again, if 
there were a general transference of effects, no individual ought 
to have varieties of memories for different things; but such are 
very common characteristics of individuals. In abnormal con- 
ditions memory may be lost for one kind of speech and not for 
another. If there is a uniform transference of effects, why could 
one disappear and leave the others unaffected ? In normal life 
the individual variations are often very marked. One distin- 
guished scholar of my acquaintance, with exceptionally keen 
general powers of learning and of retaining ideas, never can 
trust himself to quote a line of poetry. He quotes prose with 
perfect accuracy. He also has no musical memory. His 
special field of scholarship is language. My own power of re- 
membering names and addresses is something out of the ordi- 
nary, while I have never been able to commit to memory either 
poetry or prose without the greatest difficulty. 

The modern doctrines of physics, biology, and psychology all 
ought to teach us that life is a unity and that, therefore, educa- 
tion of one power of body or mind ought to affect, in some de- 
gree, other parts of the organism. The same sciences, on the 
other hand, ought to teach just as definitely that all organs or 
powers of an organism, while completely interrelated and a part 
of the unity of forces, are still in a great measure independent. 
The development of one part energizes the entire organism to 
some extent, but by far the greatest effects inhere in the part 
directly affected. 

From the pedagogical point of view it ought to be thoroughly 
apparent that the general type of memory of a given individual 
is little modifiable by training; and further, that acquisition of 
facts in a given line for the purpose of general gymnastics is an 
utterly untenable position. "Suffice it to say," says Pillsbury, 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 379 

" that memory for any range of facts will be trained more com- 
pletely by practice in that field than in some other, just as training 
in rowing is more effective in that sport than in football." Miss 
Gamble writes/ in the latest deliverance on the subject, after a 
very long experimental study, that: "It is probable that practice 
is transferable only within very narrow limits. It is probable 
also that one's 'brute retentiveness' cannot be improved by 
training. Nevertheless, it is certain that a very great difference 
can be made by training in what one can do with one's brute 
retentiveness along specific lines." 

Health and Memory. — The previous discussion of retention 
indicates that retentiveness is a physiological phenomenon, 
depending upon nutrition for its permanence. This being true, 
it is evident that whatever seriously interferes with fundamental 
states of bodily health must affect the processes of memory. 
Pedagogically this must be considered with reference to both 
the registration of facts and their attempted recall. A few facts 
will confirm the foregoing conclusions. "A young woman, of 
robust constitution and good health, accidentally fell into a 
river and was nearly drowned. For six hours she was insensi- 
ble, but then returned to consciousness. Ten days later she 
was seized with a stupor which lasted for four hours. When 
she opened her eyes she failed to recognize her friends, and 
was utterly deprived of the senses of hearing, taste, and smell, 
as well as the power of speech. . . . She had no remembrance 
from day to day of what she had been doing the previous day, 
and so every morning commenced de novo. She gradually, how- 
ever, began, like a child, to register ideas and acquire ex- 
perience. . . . But every day she began something new, unless 
her unfinished work was placed before her, forgetting what 
had been done the day before." 2 Some twelve months later 
her bodily and mental health were restored and she regained her 
vocabulary and her senses, though very gradually. The year 

1 " A Study in Memorizing Various Materials by the Reconstruction Method," 
Psych. Rev., Monograph Sup., No. 43, p. 210, 1909. 

2 Ribot, Diseases of Memory, p. 90. 



380 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

was a period of complete oblivion. This shows that the ac- 
cident not only caused a cessation of normal recall of the 
previous experiences, but also that the registration during that 
period amounted to practically nothing for her subsequent 
life. 

Carpenter relates 1 that Sir Henry Holland, an English physi- 
cian, while visiting the mines in the Hartz Mountains became 
over-fatigued and, as a consequence, suddenly forgot all his 
knowledge of German. Holland wrote: "I descended on the 
same day two very deep mines in the Hartz Mountains, remain- 
ing some hours underground in each. While in the second 
mine, and exhausted both from fatigue and inanition, I felt the 
utter impossibility of talking longer with the German inspector 
who accompanied me. Every German word and phrase de- 
serted my recollection, and it was not until I had taken food 
and wine, and been some time at rest, that I regained them 
again." Halleck says: "A professor gave the same extempore 
lecture on two different days; the first time at n A. m. He 
then showed easy mastery of his subject, and he held the atten- 
tion of his audience easily from first to last. The second time 
he began speaking at 4 p. m., and he never once seemed to be 
master of the subject, although he was evidently laboring very 
hard to be impressive. Many of the audience were yawning 
and shifting their positions. In commenting afterward ,on his 
feelings that afternoon, he said that he had never experienced a 
sense of greater effort, that instead of the ideas flowing from him 
easily and naturally as on the morning of the previous lecture, he 
had to take a cudgel and drive them all out of the cave in which 
they seemed to be endeavoring to conceal themselves." 2 In my 
own case I was once so situated that I gave the same classwork 
in three successive sections. On several occasions where I had 
given an extempore lecture to the first two sections with ease 
and without difficulty in finding topics and appropriate words, 
I came near breaking down in confusion in the third section, 

1 Mental Physiology, p. 441. 

2 Education of the Central Nervous System, p. 65. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 381 

through inability to recall my points or the words in which to 
illuminate them. This result was due to sheer exhaustion. 

Attention, Concentration, and Memory. — Halleck says: "A 
study of the physical aspects of attention is necessary in order 
that we may do the most effective mental work. If we notice 
ourselves carefully, we can often detect a distinct physical strain 
in attention. If we innervate our ears to catch the first sound of 
a coming footstep; if we continuously follow the flight of a bird 
across the heavens; if we pass our fingers over various fabrics 
to detect a difference, — we are conscious of a physical tension, 
which, if unintermitted, produces fatigue." * Attention produces 
not only the same chemical effects and the same fatigue as mus- 
cular exertion does, but we feel also the characteristic muscular 
strain on the occiput, the forehead, and other parts of the body. 

Pupils should early appreciate that only with undivided at- 
tention can they learn to advantage. They should understand 
that they need quiet surroundings; that they must be free from 
disturbances from the outside, and from distracting thoughts 
from within. Only when the mind is completely centred upon 
a given problem can it be properly mastered. Any extraneous 
thoughts of the last night's party, the coming commencement, 
or the bit of gossip which they would like to retail must all be 
resolutely avoided. If they would have much time for real en- 
joyment, due concentration upon the tasks will the quicker in- 
sure opportunity for relaxation. Lessons will be learned in less 
time and more firmly fixed. There is no student habit more 
desirable, none more often unlearned, and none more difficult 
to fix than that of undivided attention. Some one wrote that 
"there is one safe, serviceable, indispensable, attainable quality 
— that of attention; it will grow in the poorest soil and in its own 
good time bring forth abundant fruit." Teachers frequently 
overlook this and omit to provide desirable conditions for con- 
centration. Classes are often required to study in rooms where 
others are reciting, in rooms adjacent to elevators, or near noisy 
streets. Even in colleges and universities students are often re- 
1 Op. tit., p. 66. 



382 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

quired or encouraged to take voluminous notes during lectures 
or discussions. They strive to write all the lecturer says and at 
the same time to understand him. They try to get the lecture 
to carry under their arms instead of in their heads. A frequent 
result is that the ideas are left vague and the incomplete tran- 
scription proves as meaningless as Chinese when referred to just 
before the examination. 

Much attention has very properly been given to the details of 
the recitation; but altogether too little thought has been di- 
rected toward adequate facilities for study hours and their 
proper observance. Pupils are frequently required to learn les- 
sons outside of school. In a great majority of cases they have 
the most unfavorable surroundings for the pursuit of such work. 
They have to study in the general living-room, a small table only 
is provided for the whole family, a single, ill-adapted light is 
furnished, and the family work, visiting, and gossip are not in- 
frequently carried on simultaneously in the same room. The 
child can seldom have a light to himself or a table large enough 
for writing. Every child who has home work should have 
table space as large as a school desk (and that is inadequate for 
a real student) , and the lamp should not be shared by more than 
two. Rightly, each child should have his own room where he 
can be undisturbed. 

Proper Study Periods. — Much energy in study is often' dissi- 
pated because pupils do not know what is to be learned — they 
do not know what to concentrate upon. Clearness and defi- 
niteness in assigning lessons, a due consideration of the apper- 
ceptive data already possessed, and proper conditions for study 
would do more for the recitations than any patent methods of 
questioning or conducting recitations. Pupils need to be 
taught how to study in order to accomplish it economically and 
efficiently. Many of our best educators are coming to insist 
upon due attention to the proper assignment of work. A con- 
siderable part of many recitation periods should be devoted to 
planning methods of attacking the new problems. Too many 
teachers regard the class period as a time for pumping the pupil 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 383 

in order to square accounts. Not infrequently they pump 
from a dry well. Extreme misinterpretation of the Socratic 
method of questioning has led teachers to believe that they must 
not instruct or teach, but merely question and record. Their 
greatest function is to teach and to guide in methods of acqui- 
sition. Dutton says: "Supervise the study periods. The 
teacher who asks his pupils to study, and then proceeds to write 
letters or make up his reports, is not only losing an opportunity, 
but is violating his trust. He should be at the service of his 
pupils, passing around from one to the other, giving the needed 
word of advice or encouragement, making sure that all the con- 
ditions for earnest work are as favorable as possible." 1 

Pupils need time to think. A high-school pupil once said: 
"All our time is so taken up with learning our lessons and re- 
citing, that we have no time to think." Alas! is not this in- 
dictment too often true? In the hurry of activities, in school 
and out, with the methods employed, when do the pupils really 
find time to reflect upon what they are doing ? There should be 
frequent times in the pursuit of every subject when the learner 
may have time for meditation, sustained reflection, and oppor- 
tunity for independent organization of the work in his own 
mind. 

I have found it very helpful in advanced classes to assign 
written reviews to be worked out at home. Some help is usually 
necessary in organization, but only the main features are sug- 
gested and the students are left to give expression to the ideas as 
they lie in their own minds. This plan necessitates the using of 
class notes, gathering of materials from collateral reading, and 
organizing the whole topic for themselves. The topics given out 
for written organization frequently should not be wholly or 
definitely covered in the books or in the discussions, but should 
consider some new relationship growing out of the materials at 
hand. Sometimes a topic may be studied intensively for a time 
and then written up during the class period. Such work is the 
best sort of examination, and has the great advantage of giving 

1 School Management, p. 171. 



384 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

opportunity for deliberately organizing thoughts, and the forma- 
tion of multiple associations. A necessary prerequisite of all 
memory of real ideas is just this associative reflection. 1 

Multiple Associations. — Many diverse associations are neces- 
sary to secure the best memory. The more numerous and di- 
verse the associations connected with a given fact, the more pos- 
sibilities of its recall. Each experience becomes a "suggesting 
string" which may be pulled to induce recall. There is great 
danger that associations will be too few, and of the purely me- 
chanical type. The way in which the ordinary text-book his- 
tory is studied illustrates the point. The number of topics is 
large because the historian feels compelled to give a complete 
account. This necessitates great brevity of topics, usually at 
the expense of clearness. Furthermore, this condensed com- 
pendium frequently necessitates giving as much space to com- 
paratively unimportant events as to those which are of vital 
significance and which should be expanded according to their 
importance. An actual count shows that average school his- 
tories contain about fifteen hundred topics, any one of which 
would furnish several days' lessons if studied sufficiently to be 
clearly comprehended. The entire fifteen hundred, however, 
are frequently forced kaleidoscopically before children in about 
two hundred and seventy lessons. What wonder that the whole 
subject is but a confused blur in the minds of the learners ? If a 
few leading topics were selected and then studied deliberately 
from many sides until thoroughly comprehended, the resulting 
product would be infinitely more valuable. With the abun- 
dance of collateral material easily obtainable, every lesson ought 
to be illuminated by the teacher, and by means of other readings, 
until the pupils see the actors face to face, instead of through a 
glass darkly. What boots it if the entire book is not covered ? 
Not all history is recorded in any one book, and no single author 
has selected the only events worth while. 

The important thing is to have the pupils know how to study 

1 See Meumann, Okonomie und Technik des Gedachtnisses, Leipsic, 1908; 
also Kuhlmann, Am. Jour, of Psych., 18 : 394. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 385 

the subject; to know where to find books and sources that are 
worth while; and to understand some history so well that it will 
modify their likes and dislikes, and bias their entire future 
thinking. Through this they should develop a taste for history 
and a knowledge of its proper methods of study. If they have 
not acquired a genuine interest in the narrative of history, the 
work has been largely unfruitful. If a high-school pupil should 
spend an hour a day for three weeks reading on the Missouri 
Compromise or the United States Bank, he would have some 
ideas so clearly and firmly implanted that he could talk intelli- 
gently upon the subject, and moreover he would never forget 
the salient features. The ideas gained would be so many-sided 
and the associations so diverse and multiple that they could not 
easily be forgotten. How different is much of the study of 
history ! 

In studying geography it is not necessary that every fact chron- 
icled in a text-book should be taken. The text is usually a com- 
pendium for reference. There is no reason why a pupil should 
take all of the topics, and in precisely the same order as given 
in the book. Suppose the order is varied and some topics are 
even omitted ? If the topics taken are rendered interesting and 
clear and full, the method of geographical study will have been 
impressed and the facts learned will be usable. In order to ac- 
complish these fundamental ends, only a few things can be 
studied, and these must be taken so exhaustively that no doubt 
exists as to whether the resulting knowledge consists of words 
alone or of clear, well-defined concepts gained through concrete 
individual notions. Usually the book contains only the merest 
statement of the concept. All concrete details, which are abso- 
lutely necessary prerequisites to conceptual ideas, are lacking. 
Hence the child begins with the generalization which should be 
the end. The elementary text-book is a good summary, but 
not an exhaustive treatment of any of the topics discussed. 
Much of the material for the adequate treatment must be sup- 
plied from other sources — by the teacher and collateral books. 

We marvel at the politician and the scholar who seem to have 



386 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

an inexhaustible fund of illustrations and arguments bubbling 
over for expression. We say, "What wonderful memories!" 
But outside of their specialties their memories would probably 
be found as unresourceful as other people's. The secret of their 
fund of ready recall is easily accounted for by the long study and 
reflection upon the same thing. Whoever has the perseverance 
and gives long-continued attention to any line of investigation 
can acquire a fund of ready knowledge sufficient to enable him 
to talk continuously upon that line. 

Teachers are frequently disappointed in examinations be- 
cause pupils seem to have forgotten so much that they had sup- 
posedly been taught. The wonder is, however, not that pupils 
have forgotten as much, but that they remember as much as they 
do. The main reason why they do not remember more is that 
they have not really learned anything that they were asked to 
recall. They may have read the words of the lessons assigned 
and the teacher may have explained, but unless the lessons have 
become more than words, retention of ideas cannot follow. 

Recognition of Varieties of Memory Functions.— The fact that 
different individuals have different types of memory suggests 
the desirability of recognizing these individual characteristics in 
memory training. These should be considered in two ways. 
First, the one with a special gift in any direction should know 
how to utilize it; and second, the one who is specially defective 
in any direction should be helped to remedy the defect, if pos- 
sible. Use as many senses as possible in acquiring ideas. We 
should remember that knowledge is very complex, and that a 
variety of experiences enter into the real and complete knowl- 
edge of every concept we possess. For example, the complete 
knowledge of that classical fruit, the orange, includes taste ideas, 
those of smell, touch, weight, color, etc. In the case of this 
particular fruit, most of us have received the actual primary 
experiences. But in how many cases we are satisfied with getting 
only a single set of sensations, and then expect that all the other 
factors will be represented through the fiat currency of words 
that we employ! The druggist who did not employ several 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 387 

senses in acquiring his knowledge of drugs would be a danger- 
ous person to compound medicines for us. The successful one 
relies, not on sight alone, but upon the touch, the odor, the con- 
sistency, the weight, sound, etc. Chemistry used to be taught 
from a book by learning names, symbols, and formulas, without 
ever seeing a compound. By such teaching a pupil could not 
tell sulphuric acid from kerosene, or quartz from meerschaum. 

Spelling is a process in which sight, hearing, the muscular 
movements of the arm and the fingers, muscular movements of 
the vocal cords, the tactile sensation in the hand, joints, and 
vocal cords, all may and should enter. Unfortunately, un- 
psychological faddists successively accentuate some one or other 
of these factors to the neglect of all the others. Each faddist is 
partly in the right, but all are in the wrong. Ideal results can 
not be secured in this useful art until the ear is trained to hear 
the syllables and other component elements, to hear the exact 
pronunciation as a whole, and the succession of sounds in utter- 
ing the letters and syllables; until the eye is trained to see the 
word as a whole, and in its various analyses; until the muscles 
of the vocal apparatus are habituated to the utterance of the 
various combinations; until the hand and arm have formed 
definite and ready associations of movements; and finally not 
until there is a perfect harmony and co-ordination among all the 
various processes. Then only can the spelling of any combi- 
nation be said to be properly mastered. 

Note should also be made of the fact that impressions are not 
received through a given sense equally well at all times. For 
example, the ear is used to interpret language symbols several 
years before the eye. In racial development the ear was for 
ages the only interpreter of language symbols. This should be 
recognized in teaching. Early education should be almost 
wholly oral. The child's language expression should be vocal; 
instead, he is often plunged into reading as a means of learning, 
and the hand is set to pen-wagging as a means of expression. 
Halleck 1 tells us of a class that had struggled hard and long to 

1 Education of the Central Nervous System, pp. 48-54. 



388 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

interpret visually " As You Like It." But they failed utterly to 
grasp it. It was finally read to them and the change was mar- 
vellous. No greater pedagogical heresy is perpetuated at the 
present time than the atrocious method of instructing little 
children in singing by note. Instead of giving them an op- 
portunity to hear sweet melodies and then encouraging them, 
through imitation, to burst forth into songs of praise and glad- 
ness, they are required to read a strange, meaningless, Chinese 
puzzle. The little singing they learn, which is indeed a diminu- 
tive quantity, is really gained through imitation of what they 
hear. 

Interest and Memory. — Joseph Cook is said to have written in 
effect: "Interest is the mother of attention, and attention the 
mother of memory; if you would secure memory you must first 
catch the mother and the grandmother." The boy who has no 
interest in what he does, but goes through his tasks in a purely 
perfunctory way, does not acquire much, and retains that little 
poorly. The boy who blunders in his arithmetic, forgets how 
to spell, and seems to be unable to remember his geography may 
be, and often is, one who can remember every detail of all the 
season's foot-ball games. He can name every player who took 
part in each, remember all the "star plays," the fouls, the bad 
decisions of the umpire, the different formations that were tried; 
in fact, like the politician, his fund of knowledge of certain sorts 
seems inexhaustible. 

I once had a boy in school who was called a dunce by many 
of his teachers, but who knew more about birds than all his 
teachers combined. Strangely enough, too, most of his teachers 
had never discovered this interest. A little judicious considera- 
tion of this boy's interests which he brought with him furnished 
a key which unlocked other interests. He did splendid work in 
nature study, his arithmetic work became the strongest in his 
class, and, in fact, his work in all lines was second to no other's. 
The only thing he had needed was an enlistment of his interest. 
By interesting myself in things that appealed to him, I was able 
to direct his attention to other things which I thought he should 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 389 

know. The child who is kept after school to do work as a pen- 
alty, remembers well enough his emotions on the occasion, but 
forgets speedily the lesson imposed. The mind must be in the 
right attitude, and be a willing party to the operation. The 
mind that is not aglow with enthusiasm for the task in hand con- 
tinually wanders away to more alluring fields, attention is scat- 
tered, and mental acquisitions are vague, confused, and fleeting. 
Irksomeness and superficiality of acquisition are natural ac- 
companiments. 

Clearness of Ideas. — To record ideas so that they may be per- 
manent, and also that they may be recalled readily, it is neces- 
sary to apprehend them clearly. The majority of ideas which 
come to our minds are so vague and poorly defined that they 
make little impression and are soon lost. It is a common fault 
of teachers to lack lucidity in explanation, and text-books are 
generally very abstract. Limited space, to a certain degree, 
necessitates this abstractness of text-books, but it is the teacher's 
business to be concrete and clear himself, and to render con- 
densed abstractions of the text-book clear and comprehensive, 
when necessary, by copious illustrations. In the lower grades 
most text-books should serve as summaries of material secured 
from real presentation by the teacher and from concrete collat- 
eral material gathered from necessary books, experiments, and 
excursions. 

Comprehension vs. Apprehension. — The foregoing considera- 
tions of memory should teach us much with reference to modes of 
attempting to secure lasting impressions of various school-room 
lessons. According to the character of the material, some 
should be memorized mechanically, while in other lessons no 
attempt should be made to secure automatic reproduction of 
fixed forms. In lessons where the content is to be memorized, 
the efforts of the learner should be centred upon mastering the 
ideas contained. The attempt should be to understand, to 
know, and to let memory take care of itself. That which is ap- 
prehended in perception, comprehended through apperception, 
and woven into the warp and woof of mind through manifold 



390 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

associations will be retained without recourse to artificial 
memories. McLellan says: "Do not aim at training memory 
directly, but indirectly, through the training of the apperceiving 
powers. The attitude of the pupil's mind should be: I must 
perceive this just as it is and in all its bearings; not, I must re- 
member this. If the original perception, in other words, is what it 
should be, accurate, comprehensive and independent, memory 
may be left very largely to take care of itself. For the first step 
in remembering anything is to get it within the mind, and ap- 
perception is just this getting it within the mind." * 

A careful consideration of the lessons to be taught, for the 
purpose of determining just what is to be acquired, and how it is 
to be acquired, is of prime moment in the teacher's daily plans. 
Whether a given page is merely a scaffolding which should form 
a setting to the real structure, or whether it is a part of the struct- 
ure itself, should be clearly distinguished. Oftentimes many 
paragraphs must be included merely for the sake of a proper 
background of the picture which is to be discovered. They 
are necessary to a complete understanding, but there is no neces- 
sity for centring the attention upon them. But the salient facts, 
principles, and laws should be focalized, crossed and recrossed, 
viewed telescopically, microscopically, with the physical eye, and 
through the eye of imagination. Finally, through the high- 
est processes of abstraction and symbolization, the concepts 
should be comprehended in all their fulness without recourse to 
the elementary means necessary to the first fundamental ideas. 2 

Modes of Recall. — The function of recall in the learning proc- 
ess is of great pedagogical interest. The recitation has for one 
function the recall of ideas for the purpose of fixing them in 
memory more firmly. Under what conditions should recall 
take place so as to make learning the most sure and economical ? 
Ebbinghaus 3 studied the matter experimentally, in connection 



1 McLellan and Dewey, Applied Psychology, p. 95. 

2 For some good suggestions on this and related topics, see Dorpfeld, The 
Connection Between Thought and Memory, tr. by Lukens. 

3 Ueber das Gedachtnis, Leipsic, 1885. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 391 

with learning nonsense syllables. He found that if the list con- 
tained seven syllables one reading would suffice, when the list 
contained twelve syllables it took sixteen repetitions. Sixteen 
syllables required thirty repetitions. This suggests the de- 
sirability of short lessons, especially with children. After a 
lapse of twenty minutes he found that fifty-eight per cent, as 
much work was required to recommit as to commit a new list. 
After an hour the further loss by forgetting was small. Colvin 1 
says, however, that in the case of thought processes, as opposed 
to forms of expression, when once the idea is learned, recall 
twenty-four hours after learning is as accurate as immediate 
recall. This suggests the importance of frequent drills upon 
things that are to be learned verbatim, but the lack of such ne- 
cessity when dealing with ideas. For example, the spelling 
lessson and elementary foreign languages require frequent op- 
portunity for repetition, while the history and nature-study les- 
sons should be dealt with as ideas and will not require much or 
frequent repetition in learning. The Germans recognize these 
principles in a practical way in the organization of their school 
curricula. Latin and other foreign languages are given every 
day, and sometimes twice a day in the initial stages, while history, 
geography, and nature study are given about twice a week. The 
question of review through association and apperception as dis- 
tinguished from repetitions is more advantageously treated in 
connection with the subjects of apperception and of thinking. 

Kind of Memory to Employ in a Given Case. — It is also im- 
portant to know whether the form of expression in a given 
lesson should be learned exactly. There are some things that 
should be learned verbatim. In these the form as well as the 
content is important; in fact, in some cases, without the exact 
form the content would be largely valueless. Among the things 
which should be firmly fixed in the mechanical memory are the 
following: The addition, subtraction, multiplication, and di- 
vision tables; certain tables in denominate numbers; a rich vo- 
cabulary of words in the mother tongue; vocabularies in foreign 

1 Op. cit., p. 124. 



392 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

languages; the spelling of all of one's usable words in the ver- 
nacular; some mathematical formulas that are constantly ap- 
plied in higher mathematics; paradigms in ancient languages 
or other foreign languages, read only; many gems of literature; 
occasional definitions; principles, laws, etc. 

Except in the case of spelling, tables of the fundamental opera- 
tions in arithmetic, and certain parts of vocabulary-learning, the 
processes need not be devoid of thoughtful associations. The 
multiplication table and much English spelling are, however, as 
mechanical and content-less as " ickery-irey, ooery-ann" — and 
must be learned by point-blank mechanical associations. In 
such cases repetition is about the only way to establish the me- 
chanical bonds of association. In other cases admitting of 
analysis and thoughtful consideration, the content should be 
thoroughly mastered before attempting to impress the form 
of expression on the mind. This should be the invariable rule, 
for children easily focus upon learning the expression before 
comprehending its significance. The meaning of all general- 
izations to be memorized should be taught indirectly, thus com- 
ing to the concentrated statement last. Joshua Fitch expressed 
the matter in a paragraph almost worthy of being memorized 
verbatim by every teacher. ■ He wrote: "When the object is to 
have thoughts, facts, reasonings reproduced, seek to have them 
reproduced in the pupils' own words. Do not set the faculty 
of mere verbal memory to work. But when the words them- 
selves in which a fact is embodied have some special fitness or 
beauty of their own, when they represent some scientific datum 
or central truth, which could not otherwise be so well expressed, 
then see that the form as well as the expression is learned by 
heart." 1 

Permanence of Effects. — Whatever has once been memorized 
and then apparently forgotten, can be recommitted more quickly 



1 For some suggestions concerning the efficiency of various modes of learning, 
see Colvin and Myers, "Development of Imagination in School Children and the 
Relation between Ideational Types and the Retentivity of Material Appealing 
to Various Sense Departments," Psych. Rev., Monograph Sup., Nov., 1909. 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 393 

a second time than the first. Many experiments have con- 
firmed this view. The most notable experiments were those very 
patiently and heroically performed by Ebbinghaus. The dis- 
cussions concerning the permanent effects of experience ought 
to be of practical pedagogical value. Whatever we have ex- 
perienced affects us forever for better or for worse. The one 
who has lived a life of righteousness has built up a fund of ac- 
quisitions which will influence or bias his every action and 
thought. The one who has sown to the winds must reap the 
whirlwind. Patient, painstaking teachers who have carefully 
indoctrinated their pupils day by day with noble ideals should 
not be weary in well-doing, though their work often appears 
unappreciated or even lost. If the instruction has really made 
an impression, its influence can never be effaced, though appar- 
ently lost in the complex of other experiences. Even in purely 
intellectual lessons the teacher should take heart. Though 
the pupil may disappoint on examination day by the appar- 
ent effacement of lessons patiently drilled into his mind, the 
lessons will show somewhere at some time. 

McLellan 1 wrote of the permanent effects of experience: 
"Moreover, from the known connection of mind with brain, 
there is no doubt that such experiences are accompanied by 
some modification in groups of brain cells, and that their growth 
into special organs of apperception is attended with nervous 
growths which actually modify the structure of the brain. It is 
not so strange, therefore, that habit becomes a second nature so 
strong and active as to be mistaken for the first. This power, 
bent, facility to act — right or wrong, good or evil — in a definite 
direction, has entered into the structure of both body and mind, 
and will give coloring to all future thoughts and actions, just as 
the food-elements absorbed by the tree become a part of its liv- 
ing tissue and affect the assimilation of all material afterward 
absorbed. Now, the teacher is not wholly responsible for such 
development of faculty — the powerful influence of environment 
must be taken into account — but there can be no doubt that, 

1 Applied Psychology, p. 71. 



394 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

under conceivably favorable circumstances, he is, in no small 
degree, responsible. He can make the child love what he him- 
self loves, and hate what he hates. It is difficult to overrate the 
far-reaching influences of a teacher of strong personality. Under 
the teachings of such a man, the child once thinks certain 
thoughts and is stirred with certain emotions; from that mo- 
ment he will never again be exactly what he was before; it is, 
indeed, possible that he will have acquired a bent which will de- 
termine his character forever." 

Mnemonics are artificial helps used for the purpose of assist- 
ing the memory. They usually consist of rules and devices 
for producing purely mechanical associations. The following 
illustrations are very familiar: "Thirty days hath September," 
etc. ; "VIBGYOR"; "Though the rough cough and hiccough 
plough me through," etc. In ancient times great stress was 
placed upon mnemonics or Memoria Technica. Greek and Ro- 
man teachers of oratory made much use of visual pictures in at- 
tempting to fix the sequence of topics in mind. They artifi- 
cially associated the several parts of the discourse with the sev- 
eral parts of a house. In more recent times we have heard 
of numerous "systems of memory," which the authors guaran- 
tee will enable one to remember a book at one reading, abso- 
lutely stop forgetting, lead one to the heights of success, etc., etc. 
As means of memorizing ideas they are a delusion and a.snare. 
Only single, mechanical associations are formed, and these with 
words, sounds, or some sort of symbols, and not between ideas. 
If revival is desired, there is only one factor capable of producing 
it. In the rational memory there are multiple associations and 
any one of a large number of elements is sufficient to produce 
recall. In most mnemonic series only the symbols or words 
are remembered, because the ideas which they represent have 
never been learned. In the familiar "Thirty days hath Sep- 
tember," the chances are that the child learned the lingo and not 
what it was supposed to help him to remember. Even if he did 
learn that it was to help him in fixing the number of days in each 
month, the only means of recall is by unravelling the entire 



THE WISE USE AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 395 

skein of mechanical elements. Ask him suddenly to tell the 
number of days in August and he must begin with "Thirty 
days hath September" and go to "All the rest have thirty- 
one," etc. 

Every system of mnemonics deals with devices for learning 
things that are not worth learning. Instead of suggesting means 
of stimulating intelligence, they propose tricks for stultifying it. 
Stokes 1 unwittingly discloses the perniciousness of all such 
schemes when he says: "It is imperative that a Mnemonical 
Key should be thoroughly mastered — mark the term 'Mastered' 
— I do not say 'understood,' but 'Mastered.' " He maintains 
that a pupil "should have a passive mind and not audibly or 
mentally ask fifty questions 'as to the why and the wherefore' 
of what he is required to do." If the whole business of educa- 
tion were to commit words and mechanical forms to memory that 
they might be rattled off parrot fashion, there would be some 
value in some of the devices. It is questionable, however, 
whether a rational understanding would not be a quicker, and 
certainly a surer, method. 

Simple devices that one works out, or rather hits upon in 
studying analytically, are sometimes valuable, but only because 
they represent relations which we have established for ourselves. 
Mnemonic devices, necessitating as they do purely mechanical, 
single connections, are unreliable and generally useless. They 
disregard the fact that thought relations are the most vital, 
multiple, and tenacious. If any mnemonic devices are of any 
value it is not because of the virtue inherent in the device or 
system. The concentration of attention upon the material to 
be mastered, and the working out of relations among the differ- 
ent elements, are what cause the retention. However, if one 
follows some one else's mnemonics it generally requires more 
time to learn the devices than it would take to learn the thing 
itself. Besides, if the borrowed mnemonics are followed the 
means employed in securing the mnemonics are purely me- 
chanical and generally not worth retaining. 

1 On Memory, Ninetieth edition, London, 1866, p. 61. 



396 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Arrangement of the Curriculum. — In order to make memories 
permanent and serviceable, ideas should be considered for long 
periods of time. That which is perceived but once is speedily 
forgotten, because obliterated by subsequent associations. But 
if the idea recurs at intervals — not too long — permanent associ- 
ations are established. In the arrangement of our curricula in 
America we have largely disregarded these fundamental laws. 
Most studies are taken for comparatively brief periods and then 
give way to others, which in turn are glimpsed panoramically. 
In most European countries, Germany especially, the studies 
are so arranged that they are kept before the mind for long 
periods of time. This idea will be developed more fully in later 
chapters. The importance of sense perceptions and the means 
of securing them; the arrangement of subject-matter so as to 
accord with the laws of apperception; the relation of motor 
activities in the learning processes; the importance of vivid and 
accurate imagination; and the organization of elemental acqui- 
sitions into the highest thought-products, all have a definite 
bearing upon memory processes and their training. Their im- 
portance is so great that consideration will be given to those 
phases in separate chapters. 



CHAPTER XVI 
IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 

General Illustrations. — All are familiar with the term "imita- 
tion" as employed by the popular mind. When one person per- 
forms some action because he has observed the same action in 
others, he is said to imitate. A child observes his father whistling. 
The child puckers up his lips and tries to do just as his father 
did. A new girl comes to school. She seems to be a leader and 
forthwith, as if by contagion, the whole school begin to ape her 
walk, her speech, her dress, her peculiar pronunciations, her 
fashion of dressing the hair, in fact all her actions are simulated 
as nearly as possible. Both of these are well-recognized cases 
of imitation. 

Language has an instinctive basis, but its particular form is 
wholly due to imitation. That we speak and gesture rather 
than howl, bark, or neigh, is a matter of instinct; that we speak 
English, French, or German, rather than Russian, Armenian, or 
Choctaw, is due to imitation. The English boy drops his h's 
where we should put them on, or tacks them on where we should 
suppress them, simply because he lives with others who do so. 
The New Englander says nevah, rivah, and Jarvar; the English- 
man says dog, while a western American says dawg; the English- 
man calls a young bovine a calf, while the ranchman maintains 
that it is a calf. In one region of the United States every one 
says bucket; in another, pail. I carry a pocket-book, the New 
Englander a wallet. The city man goes to church, his country 
cousin goes to meeting. I attended Sabbath-school when a boy, 
my children go to Sunday-school. Whether one whistles a tune, 
a tyune, or a tschune, all depends upon who his neighbors are. 
Slang phrases, catchy expressions, or popular songs are caught 

397 



398 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

up by the special circle to which they appeal; they are dinned 
into everybody's ears, and finally resound from the lips of all 
who have been made listeners, willing or unwilling. How many 
of us have felt chagrined on catching ourselves humming some 
meaningless nickeldom melody, or using the latest slang ex- 
pressions ? Just now we hear on every hand such phrases as " up 
to you," "up against it," "in the swim," "get busy," etc. 
Street urchins, loafers, business men, lawyers, doctors, and 
even preachers and teachers find these emphatic terms coming 
automatically to their tongues. College students in special 
sections and at different times have their own peculiar epithets 
and expressions. In one university, to study is to "dig," in 
another to "bone," in another to "buck," in another to "plug," 
in another to " plow." To recite poorly in one place is to " flunk," 
in another to "fall through"; to fail is to be "plucked." A 
good recitation sometimes "knocks the professor's eyes out," 
at others it "corks him," at others merely "squelches" or 
"strikes" him. In one university, to fail in examinations is to 
"bust!" 

Manners and customs are products of imitation. Thousands 
of our every-day matters of etiquette no longer have any reason 
back of their performance. Though they may have originated in 
some rational way that has long since disappeared, they are 
now perpetuated solely through imitation. For example, the 
people of many nations shake one another's hands on meeting; 
but those from some countries shake their own hands. Ameri- 
cans and Englishmen say, "How do you do?" the German, 
"How goes it?" American men lift their hats to a lady; the 
German is more apt to do so on meeting a man. With Cau- 
casians, black is an emblem of mourning; among Chinese, 
white performs the same service. 

Fashions in dress are created and perpetuated through imita- 
tion. Were it not so, scores of hideous, unbecoming, unhygienic 
fashions could never have been launched. Desirable fashions 
are maintained in the same manner. There must be leaders 
who will be aped in all they do, to set the ball rolling. Their 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 399 

devotees pay homage by immediate adoption. Metropolitan 
milliners, dressmakers, and tailors know that to insure changes 
of fashion all they need do is to induce some leader to appear 
in a new style, and the fashion is launched. This is a usual 
method of stimulating trade. Psychical laws are the most 
potent factors in economics. A history of furniture reveals 
characteristic styles prevailing often for centuries. But within 
the memory of every adult the styles in furniture have changed 
at least three distinct times. In dress, at least half a dozen spe- 
cial epochs may be traced through the last quarter-century, 
besides a semi-annual upheaval in minor matters. One should 
enjoy his Flemish oak and his Mission patterns as fully as pos- 
sible to-day, for to-morrow they will be sought out ,by relic 
hunters. The sixteenth-century style was reopened to the sun- 
light for a day at the close of the nineteenth century, and shut 
away for another cycle to proclaim it the only style worth 
possessing. 

Imitation Among Animals. — Cases of imitation among ani- 
mals can also be recalled by all. The canary and the mocking- 
bird learn to sing from hearing others of their species; pointers 
and setters learn their peculiar feats largely from imitation. 
Monkeys make themselves appear at once intelligent and ludi- 
crous through their powers of mimicry. Of course, many imi- 
tative acts are more easily learned than others, because they are 
also instinctive. Birds would learn to sing without hearing 
others of their species, but the kind of song depends upon what 
they hear for copy. 

Non- Voluntary Imitation. — Imitation has usually been con- 
sidered to be a voluntary act; i. e., a conscious and purposive 
attempt to perform an act observed in another. Preyer, for 
example, maintains that the child is several months old before 
it really imitates. The majority of other writers have main- 
tained similar views. But with this interpretation, where are we 
to place that large range of activities which play such an impor- 
tant role in what we call unconscious tuition ? Unpurposively, 
subconsciously, I find myself doing as my associates do. I take 



4 oo PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

on tricks of speech, certain words and phrases and intonations; 
I find myself doing a thousand things my associates do; not be- 
cause I intended to, but because the acts do themselves. The 
habits have me, rather than I the habits. We are all plagiarists 
without being thieves or criminals. Civilization is something 
each one borrows from his surroundings without ever returning 
it exactly to the owner. Now, why are we such unintentional 
copyists? An examination into the fundamental nature of 
imitation will undoubtedly render the matter clear. 

Fundamental Meaning. Ideo-Motor Action. — An examina- 
tion of certain psycho-physical relations will reveal that imita- 
tion is by no means confined to voluntary mental processes, but 
that it is one of the most fundamental phenomena of life. 
Recent researches have demonstrated that all thought is motor; 
that is, with the prevalence of any idea in the mind there is a 
tendency toward the motor representation of the elements com- 
posing that idea or of the symbols representing the idea. Sup- 
pose you are asked to think intently of a circle three feet in di- 
ameter on the ceiling. Those who think the hardest will raise 
the eyes slightly, and perhaps follow the contour of the circle 
with an unconscious rotary movement of the eyes. Suppose 
you open your mouth and think the word "bubble," "bottle," 
or any other word similar in method of pronunciation. The 
most noticeable phenomenon observed will be a distinct effort 
to allow the vocal organs to move in the accustomed way. So 
strong is this tendency that so-called mind-readers make use of 
it in deceiving the public. A person is asked to think hard of a 
word. Sound-reflectors are so arranged as to catch and magnify 
the sounds unconsciously produced through muscular vibra- 
tions. These are read by the shrewd impostor. Again, mind- 
reading, as evidenced by finding hidden articles, is simply 
muscle-reading. Table-turning, the planchette, the divining 
rod, and doubtless modern spiritism, can all be explained 
similarly. 

Suppose you awaken some cold morning and say to yourself, 
"I must get up," but try to banish the thought and attempt to 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 401 

take another nap. You continually find yourself thinking, "I 
must get up," "I must get up"; but you finally, apparently, 
banish the thought. All at once, when enjoying a cat-nap or a 
day-dream, without thinking, up you get. The thought has 
worked itself out into action. Any one can easily walk a two- 
inch board on the floor. But suppose the board is placed a 
hundred feet above the floor. No one but an acrobat or a 
trained gymnast could accomplish the feat without falling. 
Why the difference? In the latter case the thought of falling 
so possesses the mind as to inhibit everything else, and natur- 
ally enough the motor response speedily follows by destroying 
equilibrium and causing the fall. 

All organic tissues possess the properties of irritability and 
contractility. Every nerve-cell is both sensory and motor. 
Consequently, whenever a sense-organ is stimulated, nervous 
tissues are affected, energy is liberated, and motor, i. e., muscu- 
lar, reactions tend to take place. This shows the basis of ideo- 
motor activities. It is a psycho-physical law that, whenever a 
sensation or a perception is received, some motor reaction must 
occur. If the idea is one that is understood or is familiar, the 
customary reaction occurs. In every-day life there are constant 
illustrations of this law. One is in company with another who 
speaks or otherwise acts in a striking manner. The particular 
action is copied unintentionally, and is at first probably set 
going only when in company with the copy. But by and by the 
process becomes so automatic and habitual that any stimulus 
may cause it to function. The given performance of any act, 
even an habitual one, is initiated through some suggesting factor. 
The suggestion may come from without or from within. At 
first the stimuli come from without, but later from within, and 
with sufficient force to initiate the process. Suppose it is a case 
of hearing slang or big words. They are absorbed, as it were. 
By and by the mere presence of the teacher of them produces 
an impulse to follow copy, and later, unless we guard against it, 
almost any impulse to expression is sufficient to suggest the 
other accompaniments. 



402 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Sensori-Motor Action. — The foregoing illustrations are of the 
ideo-motor-suggestion type. A persistent idea of an action 
was the suggestive force. In many cases of imitation the copy 
is not consciously apprehended at all. It may even come 
merely as a sensation and not rise to the dignity of perception. 
For example, some peculiarity is copied when it has never been 
consciously perceived in another. It has, however, made its im- 
pression and left its mark. Such cases are termed by Baldwin 
as of the sensori-motor-suggestion type, while those cases in 
which the stimulus is a clearly pictured idea are termed ideo- 
motor suggestions. The difference between the two types is, 
however, merely one of degree and not one of kind. 1 Un- 
doubtedly, far more actions are copied because of sensori-motor 
or ideo-motor suggestion than in a purposive, conscious way. 
One's speech is largely acquired in those ways, as are nearly all 
those habits which go to make up one's manners and bearing. 
One who consorts with woodmen and miners takes on their 
manners, not because he has resolved to do so, but because of a 
law of life. The Chinaman's manners are those of China be- 
cause of Chinese copy, and the Hindoo's because of East Indian 
copy. 

Fundamentally, the simplest imitation is a phase of the 
process resulting from ideo-motor or sensori-motor suggestion. 
The stimulus starts a motor reaction, and in turn this motor 
reaction tends to reproduce the stimulus; then the motor process 
is again reinstated. As Baldwin puts it, "the essential thing, 
then, in imitation, over and above simple ideo-motor suggestion, 
is that the stimulus starts a motor process which tends to repro- 
duce the stimulus, and, through it, the motor process again. From 
the physiological side we have a circular activity — sensor, motor; 
sensor, motor; and from the psychological side we have a similar 
circle — reality, image, movement; reality, image, movement, 
etc." 2 The only distinction to be made between imitation and 
sensori-motor suggestion is that in the imitative process each 
movement acts as a stimulus ringing up (using Baldwin's 

1 Mental Development, pp. 115^134. 2 Op. cit., p. 133. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 403 

figure) the succeeding similar action. In sensori-motor sug- 
gestion the motor effect is the terminating link in the series. 
But if this link causes a repetition of the process it becomes 
imitation; that is, the first act is the copy which tends to perpetu- 
ate itself. 

Imitation in Lower Organisms. — Although we usually ascribe 
imitation only to higher forms of animal life, it must become 
evident, from the study of sensori-motor action and ideo-motor 
action, that imitation may extend much lower down in the scale 
of intelligence. Baldwin has given us a very interesting and in- 
structive discussion of the biological interpretation of imitation 
in which he makes imitation almost synonymous with organic 
adaptation and organic memory and ascribes it as a characteristic 
of all living matter. 1 

Baldwin maintains, and I subscribe to his doctrine, that we 
find evidence of the imitative, i. e., self-sustaining, type of re- 
action in very simple organisms. He writes that "recent re- 
searches on the behavior of unicellular organisms and of plants 
show the same kind of so-called selective or ' nervous property,' 
with antithetic adaptations of attraction and repulsion. These 
creatures develop not by remaining still and awaiting the acci- 
dental repetition of stimulations by storming or assault. On 
the contrary, they do exactly what we have long thought it the 
exclusive right of higher conscious creatures to do; they go 
after, or shrink from, a stimulating influence, according as its 
former impression has been beneficial or damaging. In other 
words, they perform reactions of the stimulus-maintaining, or 
imitative type." 2 

These imitative or circular reactions, Baldwin believes, are 
manifested even by plants. Many complex plants manifest such 
perpetual movements as heliotropism, geotropism, and hydro- 
tropism. He quotes the great botanist Pfeffer as saying "that 
irritability is never simply the result of the stimuli which bring out 
the reaction; these only serve to discover the properties and the 
specific agencies of the organism itself, and that the whole pro- 

1 Op. cit., pp. 263-266. 2 Op. cit., pp. 272-273. 



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4 04 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ceeding is due to the peculiar energy of the organism." * All bac- 
teria seem to exhibit these circular reactive tendencies. When 
once stimulated by external agencies, they seem to perpetuate the 
same sort of reactions in obedience to some inner power — shall 
we say psychic? Engelmann says that "it cannot be denied 
that these facts point to psychical processes in the protoplasm." 2 

One step further and we have Verworn's theory that all pro- 
toplasmic activity is dependent upon the perpetuation of the 
activity once set going by an external stimulus. Kiihne be- 
lieves that fundamentally oxygen serves as the external stimulus 
to set the nervous protoplasmic machine going. "Kiihne has 
proved," says Baldwin, "that the oxygen of the air has chemical 
affinity for the outer layer of particles of a protoplasmic mass. 
The elements set free by this union find themselves impelled 
toward the centre by their affinity for the nuclear elements. 
This new synthesis releases elements which again move outward 
toward the oxygen at the surface. Thus there are two con- 
trary movements : away from the nucleus, or expansion, and 
toward the nucleus, or contraction. Considering the oxygen 
action as stimulus, we thus have a reaction which keeps up the 
action of its own stimulus-, and thus perpetuates itself, giving 
just the type of reaction which my theory, outlined above, calls 
'imitation.'" 3 

Auto-Imitation. — It has been necessary to consider "in some 
detail the fundamental nature of imitation in its wider biological 
aspects in order to explain the involuntary imitation of man and 
other animals. Many of the involuntary imitations are repe- 
titions of activities set up by the individual himself, i. e., they 
are not imitations of some one else. They are auto-imitations. 
Oftentimes the initial factor is purely accidental. For example, 
the child strikes a resounding surface with something in his hand. 
It gives forth a noise which pleases him; he repeats the act, and 
the series of circular reactions — muscular activity; sound, mus- 
cular activity — is kept up until fatigue or exhaustion occurs. 
The fatigue may be in the arm muscles or in the ear. The point 

1 Op. cit., p. 275. 2 Op. cit., p. 273. 3 Op. cit., p. 272. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 405 

is, some nerve-cells have become exhausted sufficiently to inhibit 
the further working of the circular machinery. Again, the child 
accidentally makes some sound, as ma, ma. It pleases him and 
he continues in an apparently unthinking and mechanical way. 
I have noticed a child during the period from the sixth to the 
seventeenth month produce many of these repetitive babblings. 
A syllable such as bd, bd; da, da; gd, gd; or nin, nin, hit upon 
either out of overflowing pleasure or begun as a half- whining 
discord, has been repeated by the quarter hour. When about ten 
months old, my boy accidentally got hold of his own tongue. The 
sensation received was sufficient stimulus to cause him to keep 
up the examination process for a long time. Much earlier, he 
found his toes and other parts of the body in the same way. The 
same stimulus always provoked a similar reaction. 

Importance of Non-Purposive Imitation. — The above repre- 
sents the typical genesis of a large part of the child's accomplish- 
ments. He learns to talk in this way, for his first words are not 
imitations of his elders; his elders imitate him. He hits upon 
new ways of sound-producing, new ways of locomotion, new 
ways of manipulating his hands, new ways of building, new ways 
of commanding his elders, new ways of sampling things, and 
through the pleasurable reaction he unreflectingly, almost re- 
flexly, continues the pleasurable process. "Professor Preyer's 
child was so delighted with the discovery that it could put a 
cover on a box, that it deliberately took it off and replaced it 
seventy-nine times without an interval of rest. It was an edu- 
cative step in its development — a step in the discovery of its 
selfhood as an energy, as well as a step in the discovery of adap- 
tation in the external world." 1 It has been argued that the 
child even imitates pain-bringing processes, but can it not be 
said that there is a pleasure— satisfied curiosity, accomplish- 
ment of end, or something of the sort that serves as a pleasure, 
to overbalance the pain? Sometimes adults irritate a wound 
or a swelling, producing great pain, but over and above the pain 
is exquisite pleasure. 

1 Harris, Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 296. 



4 o6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Are not many of the automatisms of adult life phases of the 
non-conscious imitations of the sensori-motor and ideo-motor 
types? We are continually imitating things unintentionally. 
We of a given section of the country remove to another section, 
and ere we are aware begin to change our pronunciation. We 
have not intended to do so; we have scouted the idea, even ridi- 
culed the custom, but here we are following suit. Who has not 
found an accretion of slang adhering to his vocabulary after 
being subjected to hearing it for some time? Who has not 
found himself unintentionally gesturing, or walking, or con- 
ducting himself, like some one in whose company he has recently 
been? I have found myself on the lecture platform assuming 
positions, tones of voice, general bearing — rather lamely — but 
nevertheless simulating a certain speaker. I had not intended 
to, but his style had so integrated itself into my lecture ideals 
that here it was working itself out in motor consequents. The 
explanation above on the basis of sensori-motor relationships 
must be extended to include ideo-motor sequences. When we 
shall have become appreciative of the wonderful and absolutely 
certain results of ideo-motor action, we shall be much more 
solicitous to have the mind constantly supplied with a stock of 
desirable ideas, resting assured that righteous action will follow 
as a consequent upon righteous thinking and desiring. 

Beginnings of Voluntary Imitation.— It is impossible to indi- 
cate any absolute time when imitations first make their appear- 
ance. Instinctive imitations of various kinds manifest them- 
selves almost from birth in the lower animals. Intelligent imi- 
tations are usually ascribed to man, but undoubtedly many of 
the imitations of lower animals are as clearly intelligent as those 
undesigned ones of man. The dog that does just what another 
dog did in order to be petted or fed, is imitating, and doing 
the act with an end in view, and as he has observed it in 
others. 

Darwin thought his boy imitated sounds at four months, but 
was not positive of any imitation until the sixth month. Preyer 
records observing his child imitate pursing his lips in the fif- 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 407 

teenth week. But it is doubtful if these are cases of deliberate 
imitation, or even imitation at all. Tiedemann believes his son 
made imitative movements with his mouth when he saw any one 
drinking. In the fourth month a child has been noticed trying 
to cough in imitation of his own accidental coughing. Preyer 
observed his boy fifteen months old trying to blow out a candle- 
light as he had seen others do. I have seen my child of six 
months try to cover his face with a handkerchief to play peek-a- 
boo as I had done. I covered my face and he also tried to put 
the handkerchief over my face. Repeatedly I have seen him 
strike the table after seeing me drum on it in trying to produce 
a noise for his amusement. At ten months he deliberately hid 
behind a bench and occasionally peeked out to laugh and be 
laughed at. We had not done this identical thing, but was he 
not imitating? At nine months he tried to put a spoon in 
his mouth as he had seen others do. At the same age, after 
pulling my hat off, he tried to put it on my head as I did. 

Tracy says that as early as the third and fourth months the 
"buddings of the imitative propensity" may be observed. "Raw 
attempts at vocal imitation may be observed even in the second 
month, when the child makes a response to words addressed to 
him. This, however, is mechanical. In the third month the 
child will imitate looks, i. e., he will look at an object at which 
others are looking." l I have never observed anything of this 
until about the sixth month, and it is doubtful whether this is an 
imitative act, even though volitional. 

Champneys says his child tried to imitate sounds of talking 
in the thirteenth week. "A boy of seven months tried hard to 
say simple monosyllables after his mother. Another is reported 
to have accomplished his first unmistakable imitations when 
seven months old, in movements of the head and lips, laughing, 
and the like. Crying was imitated in the ninth month, and in 
the tenth imitation of all sorts was quite correctly executed, 
though even at the end of the first year new movements, 
and those requiring complex co-ordination, often failed. A 

1 Psychology of Childhood, p. 104. 



408 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

child of eight and a half months, having seen the mother poke 
the fire, afterwards crept to the hearth, seized the poker, thrust it 
into the ash-pan, and poked it back and forth with great glee, 
chuckling to himself. Another child, in his tenth month, imi- 
tated whistling, and later, the motions accompanying the fa- 
miliar ' pat-a-cake, ' etc. In his eleventh month he used to hold 
up the newspaper and mumble in imitation of reading. Another 
boy, in his eleventh month, used to cough and sniff like his 
grandfather, and amused himself by grunting, crowing, gobbling 
and barking in imitation of the domestic animals and birds. A 
little girl of this age used to reproduce with her doll some of her 
own experiences, such as giving it a bath, punishing it, kissing it, 
and singing it to sleep." * 

Dramatic Imitation. — One of the important elements of dra- 
matic representation is the imitative. Through suggestion an 
idea is received and its representation is carried out with more 
or less fidelity. In children the impersonated self often be- 
comes so real as temporarily to supplant the usual self. James 
writes: 2 "For a few months in one of my children's third 
year he literally hardly ever appeared in his own person. It was 
always 'Play I'm So-and-so, and you are So-and-so, and the 
chair is such a thing, and then we'll do this or that.' If you 
called him by his name, H., you invariably got the reply, 'I'm 
not H., I'm a hyena, or a horse-car,' or whatever the feigned 
object might be. He outwore the impulse after a time; but 
while it lasted, it had every appearance of being the automatic 
result of ideas, often suggested by perceptions, working out ir- 
resistible motor effects." Sully tells us that children, when pre- 
tending to live another life, frequently resent any intrusion that 
seems to contradict the harmony of the simulated world. He 
relates that "a little girl of four was playing 'shop' with her 
younger sister. 'The elder one,' (writes the mother) 'was 
shopman at the time I came into her room and kissed her. She 
broke out into piteous sobs. I could not understand why. At 

1 Tracy, op. cit., p. 104. 

2 Principles of Psychology, II, p. 409. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 409 

last she sobbed out: "Mother, you never kiss the man in the 
shop." I had with my kiss quite spoilt her illusion.'" 1 

Imitation Is Not Servility. — Imitativeness has been popularly 
supposed to be a mark of servility; a characteristic only of those 
who are immature or mentally deficient. But in the light of 
recent investigation it has received new interpretation. Instead 
of being confined to certain animals, children, and abnormal 
adults, it is found to be a most fundamental law of psycho- 
physical action. All animals, from the lowest to the highest 
forms, are imitative. Many animal-trainers exclude all animals 
that do not show some aptness at imitating. Only those that 
show some imitative tendency can be successfully trained. Chil- 
dren who do not imitate readily are always dull. We are wholly 
justified in saying that the more imitative the individual, the 
more educable. 

Imitation in Social Life. — Imitation is so common that we 
scarcely think of its exceeding potency in the development of in- 
dividual and social life. Most psychologists, even, have passed it 
by with scarce honorable mention. But when we have analyzed 
it and found how intimately it is interwoven with nearly every 
other psychic function, we do not doubt its importance. When 
we attempt to merely catalogue the various ways in which it is 
manifested, we realize the impossibility of doing the subject 
justice. Professor Royce writes: "Were I anxious, then, for 
mere illustrations of the frequency of the imitative functions 
in the life of man, I should indeed have no trouble in getting my 
fill of them, without other aid than that of my own eyes." In 
fact, we may rightly conclude that our whole social fabric and 
moral practices are largely determined by imitation. 

For example, imitation is rife in politics. The majority 
of men vote the party ticket of their fathers. Few come to 
fixed, independent beliefs through reflection and deliberation. 
Men often believe themselves original thinkers, but even college- 
bred men vote largely as their fathers did. Deahl made an in- 
vestigation which, though in a somewhat limited field, confirms 

1 Children's Ways, p. 23. 



4 io PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

casual observations. He found that out of fifty men selected 
from among college graduates, and many of them college pro- 
fessors, eighty-four per cent, voted the same ticket as their 
fathers voted. 1 Could a promiscuous canvass of the less well 
educated be secured, the percentage would probably be even 
larger. 

Commercial panics are good examples of the force of wholesale 
imitation. Let it be rumored that there is a run on the bank. 
If a neighbor is known to have withdrawn deposits, a dozen will 
follow his example, and immediately a stampede is precipi- 
tated. At a fire, one giddy, emotional individual can cause the 
multitude to indulge in a mad, frenzied rush, while a calm, 
phlegmatic temperament assuming generalship can quiet the 
turbulence and lead the unstable throng to safety. Because of 
suggestibility and imitation we have such phenomena as the re- 
ligious crazes of the Middle Ages, mediaeval mental epidemics, 
witchcraft, demonophobia, the Dutch tulip craze, and the Mis- 
sissippi scheme. In the presence of a crowd the suggestibility of 
each individual is heightened, and the tendency to imitate rash 
actions is much greater. Sidis says: "Men think in crowds, and 
go mad in herds." 2 James says this impulsive tendency to act 
in crowds as soon as a certain perception occurs is instinctive in 
man and other gregarious animals. Leadership, except when 
accompanied by perfect sanity, is apt at some time to lead- mul- 
titudes to disaster. The Crusades serve as a good example of 
what I mean. Tarde writes : "In general, a naturally prestigeful 
man will stimulate thousands of people to copy him in every par- 
ticular, even in that of his prestige, thereby enabling them to 
influence, in turn, millions of inferior men." 3 

Royce says that "among children and among adults virtue and 
vice alike are, under favorable circumstances, 'catching'; that 
fashion has, in certain matters, an irresistible sway; that not 
only commercial panics, and mobs, and 'fads,' but also great 
reform movements, and disciplined armies, and such historical 

1 Imitation in Education, p. 25. 2 Psychology of Suggestion, p. 343. 

3 Laws of Imitation, p. 84. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 411 

events as the conversion of nations in the old days from hea- 
thenism to Christianity, all illustrate, in their several ways, the 
potency of imitative tendencies; and that art itself, at least ac- 
cording to Aristotle's famous definition, is essentially imitation. 
We know that there are sometimes epidemics of crime or of sui- 
cide. We know that the doleful prevalence of the current popu- 
lar melody is due, not to a love of music, but to the insistent 
force of the imitative tendency. Turn, thus, which way we 
will, the familiar presence of the imitative functions in human 
life impresses itself upon us." l 

In emphasizing the unconscious power of imitation, Royce 
cites Tarde, who "asserted and developed the interesting for- 
mula that what the individual hypnotizer is to his sleeping and 
abnormally plastic subject, such, almost precisely, is society to 
the waking and normally plastic man." Tarde has somewhere 
said in effect that "society is imitation, and imitation is a kind 
of somnambulism." The laws of imitation are precisely the 
same laws of psycho-physical action that govern hypnotism. In 
the hypnotic state the ordinary inhibitions of normal waking 
life are removed. The hypnotist then monopolizes the attention 
with ideas of whatever he wishes to have the subject execute. 
Then, because of the laws of ideo-motor action, the results follow 
as a matter of course. The teacher would perhaps better not 
proclaim hypnotic laws as one of his usual methods of securing 
obedience, but the psychologist recognizes that the successful 
teacher utilizes exactly the same fundamental laws as does the 
hypnotist. 

Dr. Harris writes: 2 "The place of imitation in the develop- 
ment of civilized man is beginning to be recognized. Not only 
does imitation give rise to language, but it leads to the forma- 
tion of institutions, the family, civil community, the state, the 
church — those greater selves which re-enforce the little selves 
of isolated individuals. Imitation is social in its very nature, 
for it is the repetition by the individual within himself of the 

1 Century Magazine, 48: 138. 

2 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 299. 



4 T2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

deeds of his fellows. . . . The individual man repeats for him- 
self the thinking and doing and feeling of his fellows, and thus 
enriches his own life by adding to it the lives of others. Thus 
... his own life becomes vicarious for others, and he partici- 
pates vicariously in the life of society. The psychology of imita- 
tion explains the mode in which the individual unites with his 
fellow-men to form a social whole." 

He further writes: 1 "Thus we see that there is an element 
of originality in the most mechanical phase of imitation. The 
self is active and assimilative. It sees an external deed which 
it proceeds to make its own deed by imitation. The child 
proves itself to possess a human nature identical with the one 
whom it imitates. Originality grows by progressive deepening 
of the insight into the causes and motives of the thing imi- 
tated. The lowest stage of imitation superstititiously imitates 
all the details, because it has no insight into the grounds and 
purposes of the action imitated, and but little comprehension 
of the means employed. When it understands the means and 
the motives, it strikes out for itself and makes new adapta- 
tions. It modifies its imitations to suit differences of circum- 
stances. Originality grows with this ascending comprehension 
of means and purposes. There comes a time when the imi- 
tative child comprehends the principle as well as does the 
master whom he imitates, and then he is emancipated from all 
imitation in this part of his education. If he keeps on and com- 
prehends the genesis of the principle from deeper principles, he 
emancipates himself from even the 'hypnotic suggestion' of 
the principle itself, and all external authority has become in- 
ward freedom." 

Imitation in the Fine Arts. — Although the products of the fine 
arts are not mere copies, they are, nevertheless, imitative. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds says: "Our art is not a divine gift, neither is it 
a mechanical trade." Even though an artist does not copy 
other works of art, he must go to nature for her innumerable 
forms. Goethe writes: "The artist must hold to nature, imitate 

1 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 302. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 413 

her. He must choose the best out of the good before him." 
Art has gradually developed by slowly accumulating imitative 
accretions. Visit the famous art galleries and study the art of 
schools or periods. To the novice the sameness in a given 
school or period is more striking than the differences. The in- 
dividual variations which the connoisseur recognizes as origi- 
nality and marks of genius are very real and very great to the 
critical eye, but they are apt to be overlooked by the mul- 
titude. 

Deahl writes: "The fundamental principle in any school of 
art or of literature is imitation. Among the master artists it is 
selective, intelligent, often unconscious imitation. Among the 
second or third rate artists imitation is the cause of the simi- 
larity, but is a less intelligent, a more mechanical kind of imita- 
tion; it approaches nearer to what we term copying." * Before 
the artist exhibits great originality he must spend years in imi- 
tating — either nature or the products of other artists. This in 
no wise implies mere copying. It means that the great works 
should be studied, the principles mastered, the ideals absorbed, 
and new inspiration developed out of them. It is said that 
William M. Hunt, one of America's eminent artists, advised con- 
tinued study of the best works of art. "You must set yourself 
ahead by studying fine things. I've told you over and over again 
whose works to draw — Michael Angelo, Raphael, Diirer, Hol- 
bein, Mantegna. Get hold of something of theirs. Hang it up 
in your room, trace it, copy it, draw it from memory over and 
over, until you own it as you own ' Casabianca' and ' Mary had 
a Little Lamb.'" 2 

Imitation in Literature. — Although imitations are not so easily 
traceable in literary productions, yet a critical study of many of 
the masterpieces will disclose the effects of suggestion, at least. 
Longfellow's "Hiawatha," as is well known, has a proto- 
type in the Finnish poem, "Kalevala." Longfellow cannot 
be said to have copied from "Kalevala," but he received very 

1 Imitation in Education, p. 31. 

2 Quoted by Deahl, op. cit., p. 29. 



414 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

definite suggestions as to both the form and the content. Chau- 
cer was doubtless much indebted to Boccaccio for suggestions 
which were utilized in The Canterbury Tales. Most of Shake- 
speare's plots were not absolutely original with him. Carlyle's 
Sartor Resartus is plainly of German origin. Rabelais, while imi- 
tating the Greeks, afforded suggestions for many who followed 
him. Many incidents similiar to those in Don Quixote, Robinson 
Crusoe, and Gulliver's Travels under other names and bearing 
the imprint of other pens are said to have delighted many, even 
centuries ago. To assert these facts is in no wise to discredit the 
authors. To be able to imitate and give in addition the creative 
touch of a new whole is evidence of genius. The majority 
either copy blindly and poorly without deviation or advance, 
or they do not see what is worth while to imitate. Without 
making use of what has been wrought and giving it a new 
turn, the world would remain at a standstill. To imitate is 
no sign of weakness. "When a writer improves what he imi- 
tates, he does well; but when he fails to add beauty, we 
condemn him. New light, or grace, or charm must be given. 
In the progress of the mind, in all departments of literature, 
we find imitation, the most palpable in the books we most 
admire." 1 

Educational Value of Imitation — General. — Although mere 
ability to copy, without discrimination in selecting copy and 
without judgment in making use of what is copied, is not a high 
accomplishment, yet the instinct and the capacity to imitate 
furnish the starting-point for all improvement. Otherwise, of 
what use would experience be? Professor Royce says that 
"only the imitative animal can become rational." As we begin 
to understand its nature and its possibilities better, we shall make 
more definite attempts to utilize imitation in education. It is 
at once evident that a force so potent in shaping thought and 
action, whether we will or no, should be considered in the 
purposive regulation of thought and conduct. If, through ideo- 
motor action and imitation, we necessarily appropriate our 

'Deahl, op. cit., p. 33. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 415 

environment and become modified in consonance with it, we are 
plainly admonished to shape environment so as to contribute best 
toward the ideal results desired. If we must imitate, the great 
educational question is how to select wisely copy that is 
worthy of imitation. 

Every teacher ought to understand the great importance of 
imitation. Up to the time the child has entered school, a very 
large proportion of its knowledge has been gained and retained 
in a purely imitative way. Several of the ancient writers on 
education realized the importance of imitation in education. 
Plato shows its value in learning language, music, painting, 
science, dancing, literary style, and also in the formation of 
character. Xenophon believed that the most effective way of 
teaching behavior and manners is through imitation. Aristotle 
cautions against leaving children much with slaves, and also 
urges us to be careful what stories children hear. Many Greeks 
are known to have been solicitous that their children should 
mingle with those only who spoke pure Greek. Plutarch urged 
in his essay on The Training of Children that they should be 
shielded "lest, being constantly used to converse with persons 
of a barbarous language and evil manners, they receive corrupt 
tinctures from them. For it is a true proverb, ' that if you live 
with a lame man you will learn to halt.'" Quintilian would 
insist that the nurse have a good moral character, and that she 
should " also speak with propriety. Let the child not be accus- 
tomed, therefore, even while he is yet an infant, to phraseology 
which must be unlearned." Walt Whitman writes: 

"There was a child went forth every day, 
And the first object he looked upon, that object he became, 
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain 

part of the day, 
Or for years or stretching cycles of years. 
The early lilacs became part of this child." 

Another poet wrote: 

"This price the gods exact for song, — 
That we become what we sing." 



416 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

From Walter Pater we have the following words apropos of 
the subject: 

"Imitation: it enters into the very fastnesses of character; and 
we, our souls, ourselves, are forever imitating what we see and 
hear, the forms, the sounds which haunt our memories, our im- 
agination. We imitate not only if we play a part on the stage, 
but when we sit as spectators, while our thoughts follow the 
acting of another, when we read Homer and put ourselves 
lightly, fluently, into the place of those he describes: we imitate 
unconsciously the line and color of the walls around us, the trees 
by the wayside, the animals we pet or make use of, the very dress 
we wear. Men, children are susceptible beings, in great meas- 
ure conditioned by the mere look of their 'medium.' Like 
those insects, we might fancy, of which naturalists tell us, taking 
color from the plants they lodge on, they will come to match 
with much servility the aspects of the world about them." x 

Imitation in Language Education. — Think what it means to 
learn to talk! A grown person would give a great deal to learn 
to speak a foreign language correctly in a few years. The child 
at five or six years has gained almost perfect command of the 
oral expression of all his thoughts. Of course, his ideas and 
his vocabulary are limited, but his expression is almost perfect 
within his limited range. At this age the number of words is not 
so small, either, as one might suppose. An average child of six 
years, brought up in a good home, possesses a usable vocabulary 
of a couple of thousand words. He understands nearly double 
that many. An adult often spends years of painfully conscious 
labor in acquiring the vocabulary of a foreign language. Not 
only does imitation determine the tongue which the child is 
to speak, but the vocabulary, the inflection, to some extent the 
tone, the rapidity of speech, order of words, and choice of illus- 
trations, are also all matters of imitation. 

It is easy to recognize the role played by imitation in the first 
years of childish attempts to master the mother tongue. Chil- 
dren learn through imitation to clip their words, to intone them 

1 Plato and Platonism, p. 245. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 417 

clearly, to talk in monosyllables, or to drawl. The boy when 
asked why he drawled his words replied, "Mother drawls her'n." 
The deaf child, unable to imitate the speech of his fellows, re- 
mains mute (unless he learns lip or throat reading). The child 
who lives in a home where correct language is spoken, and who 
hears good language among his playmates, will speak correctly, 
barring a few inaccuracies resulting from irregularities in the 
structure of the language. He will learn to syllabicate properly, 
utter words distinctly, and to give correct emphasis to his ex- 
pressions. The teaching of language in schools is often ren- 
dered difficult because children have so much to unlearn. Years 
of imitation of undesirable models counteract the efforts in the 
right direction. Chubb in his admirable work, The Teaching 
of English, has some very valuable words concerning imita- 
tion. He says we shall be less prone to exhaust the child by this 
effort to "draw him out, and get him to overhaul and dissect 
and play the showman to his possessions, if we bear in mind more 
constantly the nature of the assimilative process; so that we 
may assist rather than retard it. The prehensile power of the 
child is not so much rational and analytic, as imaginative and 
imitative. The way to get him to appropriate a fact or idea 
is not to labor with him until he knows that he knows, but to 
insure some sort of unconscious imitative reaction. He must 
unconsciously do something about it. . . . We conclude that 
everything he sees and hears evokes a motor responsiveness in 
him; it comes loaded with motor suggestion and starts a process 
of motor reaction, a process that education may either inhibit 
or encourage. It is not necessary, however, that he should act- 
ually re-enact the story he has heard, that he should physically 
do something about it; he may react imaginatively." 1 

Roger Ascham insists that "All languages, both learned and 
mother tongue, be gotten, and gotten onlie by imitation. For 
as ye vse to heare, so ye learne to speake: if ye heare no 
other, ye speake not your selfe; and whome ye onlie heare, of 
them you onlie learne. . . . And, therefore, if ye would 

'Chubb, The Teaching of English, p. 31. 



418 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

speake as the best and wisest do, ye must be conversant, where 
the best and wisest are : but if you be borne or brought up in a 
rude countrie, ye shall not chose but speake rudelie: the rudest 
man of all knoweth this to be trewe." * 

In all language acquisition of the child, the most important 
factor is imitation — at first unstudied and purely absorptive, and 
gradually becoming conscious and purposive. At first the all- 
important thing is to have the child hear only the purest of 
speech. He will then re-echo exactly as he has heard. Later 
he should not only hear pure speech, but he should become satu- 
rated with the forms of the choicest diction expressed in litera- 
ture. Gradually the beauty of forms of expression in literature 
should be brought to his consciousness in order that he may rise 
from the stage of reflex imitation to the higher, studied idealistic 
stage. The primary consideration, however, is to so pre-empt the 
mind with the choicest form and content in literature that spon- 
taneous expression of a similar nature will follow necessarily as 
a result of the laws of ideo-motor action. 

Properly guarded, even definitely studied imitative reproduc- 
tion of the best models is of great assistance in acquiring ideal 
habits of expression. Occasionally, when a pupil has read a 
piece of literature, it is well to have him reproduce it with all 
the imitativeness he can command. For what other purpose 
has he studied than to make the thought and the art his own? 
So long as the art has become integrated into his own style and 
is not a borrowed garment put on for the occasion, there is no 
danger. A careful distinction must, of course, be kept in mind 
between proper imitation and mere copying. Spontaneity and 
naturalness are prime desiderata, and are not sacrificed if the 
language work is made a matter of assimilation and not one of 
mechanical memory. The models for studied imitation should 
also be varied, and none long continued. 

The place and meaning of imitation which are here desired 
to be emphasized are well illustrated in many of the present-day 
books on composition, in which the basis of composition work is 

1 The Schoolemaster. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 419 

to be the study of the choicest literary models of the various forms 
of composition. The relation between composition and literature 
is well set forth by Principal Webster in the preface to his book 
on teaching composition through the study of models. He says : 

"There are two classes of artists: geniuses and men of talent. 
Of geniuses in literature, one can count the names on his fingers; 
most authors are simply men of talent. Talent learns to do by 
doing, and by observing how others have done. When Brunel- 
leschi left Rome for Florence, he had closely observed and had 
drawn every arch of the stupendous architecture in that ancient 
city; and so he was adjudged by his fellow citizens to be the only 
man competent to lift the dome of their Duomo. His observa- 
tion discovered the secret of Rome's architectural grandeur; 
and it is the accumulation of such secrets which is the develop- 
ment of every art and science. Milton had his method of writing 
prose, Macaulay his, and Arnold his — all different and all excel- 
lent. And just as the architect stands before the cathedrals of 
Cologne, Milan, and Salisbury to learn the secret of each; as the 
painter searches out the secret of Raphael, Murillo, and Rem- 
brandt; so the author analyzes the masterpieces of literature to 
discover the secret of Irving, of Eliot, and of Burke. Not that 
an author is to be a servile imitator of any man's manner; but 
that, having knowledge of all the secrets of composition, he shall 
so be enabled to set forth for others his own thought in all the 
beauty and perfection in which he himself conceives it." * 

Chubb says: " Children learn their native tongue by imitation; 
and imitation continues to be, throughout the school course, the 
chief factor in language work. The rules of grammar and rhe- 
torical precept are later and comparatively unimportant means 
to the end sought. Of models, the most influential is the teacher 
herself; the influence of book models is heavily discounted if 
the teacher's own practice is not exemplary and winning. And 
by example we mean, first and foremost, oral example." 2 

1 English Composition and Literature, p. ix. Another book illustrating the 
same plan is that of Kavana and Beatty, Composition and Rhetoric. 

2 The Teaching of English, p. 374. 



4 2o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

He further says: "Children learn to write as they learn to 
swim — by watching and imitating others; by trying under the 
lead of a model. They develop a feeling and instinct and knack 
for writing, without which they will never be effective as writers. 
. . . The child or youth who writes well is he who feels that 
he has something to say, wants to say it, and to say it well — to 
make his point. He naturally falls back, consciously or un- 
consciously, upon examples known to him." 1 

The testimony of some really successful writers concerning 
their method of learning to write should be valuable. Steven- 
son writes of imitation in this connection: "That, like it or 
not, is the way to learn to write. It was so Keats learned, 
and there never was a finer temperament for literature than 
Keats's; it is so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned. 
Perhaps I hear some one cry out: ' But that is not the way to be 
original!' It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. 
Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this train- 
ing that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be 
no one more original than Montaigne, neither could any be 
more unlike Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much 
the one in his time tried to imitate the other. Burns is the very 
type of a prime force in letters; he was of all men the most 
imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, proceeds directly 
from a school. Nor is there anything here that should astonish 
the considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly 
prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; 
before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he 
should long have practiced the literary scales . . . and it is 
the great point of these imitations that there still shines beyond 
the student's reach his inimitable model." 

Stevenson further says: "Whenever I read a book or passage 
that particularly pleased me, I must sit down at once and set 
myself to imitate that quality of propriety or conspicuous force 
or happy distinction in style. I was unsuccessful and I knew 
it, but I got some practice in these vain bouts in rhythm, in 

1 Op. cit., p. 382. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 421 

harmony, in construction, and in co-ordination of parts. I 
have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to 
Wordsworth, to Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Mon- 
taigne, to Baudelaire, and to Obermann." * 

Franklin's early reading gave him a bias toward dogmatic 
disputation. This was later overcome by imitation of a differ- 
ent style. He found himself lacking " in elegance of expression, 
in method, and in perspicuity." He then came across a volume 
of the Spectator, of which he says, "I read it over and over and 
was much delighted with it. I thought the writing was excel- 
lent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With that view I took 
some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in 
each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without look- 
ing at the work, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing 
each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been ex- 
pressed before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. 
Then I compared my 'Spectator' with the original, discovered 
some of my faults, and corrected them." To acquire a stock 
of words and a readiness in recollection and use of them, he 
"took some of the tales in the ' Spectator' and turned them into 
verse; and after a time when I had pretty well forgotten the 
prose, turned them back again." 

Imitation in Developing Personality. — The teacher needs to 
observe carefully the effects of varying impressions upon the 
class. Warner tells us 2 that " the sight of your movement brings 
into activity the same combination of nerve-centres as you use. 
This is one means by which you determine action in the child's 
brain." Because children are such imitators of one another 
they are unconsciously securing some sort of education. Care 
must be exercised to exclude undesirable companions, those with 
either physical, mental, or moral defects. Cases are numerous 
in which those afflicted with diseases such as St. Vitus' dance 
(chorea) have caused others to become afflicted solely through 
imitation. Stammering, hysterics, and even ordinary fright 

1 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, p. 55. 

2 Mental Faculty, p. 89. 



422 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

become epidemic. Children possessing tendencies toward ex- 
citability and over-mobility should be with children having good 
self-control. By imitation of these latter the pathological ten- 
dencies may disappear. Yawning, gaping, coughing, restless- 
ness, may become infectious in a class. Every word, gesture, 
peculiarity of walk, facial expression, intonation of voice, is 
certain to be absorbed and unconsciously or purposely repre- 
sented in action. Thus, habits of language become universal- 
ized in a school or community, a certain type of manner becomes 
typical of a school, certain methods of study and recitation often 
characterize a system of schools. In one place recitations are 
clear-cut, intelligently rendered, while in another school they are 
always disconnected, mumbled, and indistinct, and rendered 
with no apparent pride. Even an excellent teacher cannot 
model things to his own liking if the custom does not sanction 
his way. A splendid teacher once failed in a country school 
because he insisted on having the boys remove their hats during 
recess while in the school-room. Each one was simply imitat- 
ing a prevailing custom, and they rebelled against any deviation. 
Put the most obstinate of those boys in a school where custom 
dictated baring the head indoors and see how quickly he would 
uncover, with never a word of opposition. 

Thus through imitation the child is to absorb many of the 
most valuable lessons of life. All the elements that go to make 
up what we term "bearing" or "personality" are largely prod- 
ucts of imitation. To a large extent one's character is deter- 
mined imitatively by the company one keeps. It is frequently 
true that ideals of life and conduct are imitative reflections more 
than particular intellectual acquisitions. Feelings are especially 
contagious. Attitudes toward life and its various problems are 
taken on through inoculation when the reasons therefor are not 
at all apparent. As nearly all the world's great wrong-doings, 
resulting in robbery, embezzlement, drunkenness, poverty, pau- 
perism, vice, divorce, murder, suicide, etc., result from a distorted 
view of life, duty, and happiness, it becomes highly important 
to radiate ideals which shall counteract the distorted ones. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 423 

Miinsterberg, in speaking of the moral aspect of suggestion, 
says: "We have no mystic power by which our will simply takes 
hold of the other man's will, but we inhibit and suppress by 
influence on the imagination those abnormal impulses which 
resist the sound desires. If that were immoral, we should have to 
make up our minds that all education and training were per- 
verted with such immoral elements. Every sound respect for 
authority which makes a child willing to accept the advice and 
maxims of his elders is just such an influence. If it were really 
a moral demand that the will be left to its own resources, and 
that no outside influence come to strengthen its power or remove 
its hindrances or smooth its path, then we ought to let the chil- 
dren grow up as nature created them, and ought not to try to 
suppress from without by discipline and training, by love and 
encouragement, the wilful impulses and the ugly habits. Even 
every good model for imitation is such a suggestive influence from 
without, and every solemn appeal to loyalty and friendship, to 
patriotism and religion, increases the degree of suggestibility. 
It is the glory of life that the suggestive power may belong to 
moral values instead of mere pleasures, but it is not the aim of 
life to remain untouched by suggestion. And he who by sug- 
gestion helps the weak mind to overcome obstacles which the 
strong mind can overthrow from its inborn resources, works for 
the good of the individual and of the community in the spirit of 
truest morality." * 

Imitation in Adolescence. — At no period of life is imitation 
more slavish than during adolescence. While children imitate 
much without reflection, yet they care little for public opinion 
and imitate little merely to receive personal approval. But the 
adolescent is so completely absorbed in securing approval of 
those whose opinion he courts that he is as absolutely enslaved 
as if indentured or hypnotized. His idealization amounts to 
apotheosis, and he is blind and deaf to all else. Popular senti- 
ment rightfully cried out against the fagging system in the great 
public schools of England, but it was not because the fags 

'Miinsterberg, Psychotherapy, p. 378. 



424 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

wailed or bemoaned their hard lot. They doubtless considered 
their menial tasks not as degrading, but on the contrary as the 
highest honor. What boy has not run chasing the ball for the 
big fellows until ready to drop from exhaustion? How many 
boys have not been beguiled by some unscrupulous, though, to 
them, fascinating bully into doing things which would horrify 
their parents, and later themselves, simply to meet the ap- 
proval of their hero ? Fagging at Rugby was censured because 
of the debasing effects of this early slavery of the will, which 
blighted the life of many a youth who was too frail-willed to 
outgrow the temporary hypnosis. 

College government largely depends upon the public senti- 
ment espoused by the students themselves. Faculty rules are 
insignificant in comparison with the laws enunciated by the 
leaders of the classes. High-school pupils, though not so asser- 
tive, idealize and idolize even more blindly. What is more sug- 
gestive of the cataleptic trance than the high-school boy in love, 
especially with some one old enough to be his mother? Were 
youth not purblind in their hero-worship, what boy would repeat 
the deathly sickness of his first smoke simply to project himself 
into his ideal world ? What college freshman would don a fools- 
cap, a dress-suit, or a clown's garb and labor six hours rolling 
a peanut through the main street of the town, or do the thousand 
and one other equally inane things so lacking in fun for adults 
that even the street laborers will not turn their heads to look? 
We should not bewail such actions nor pronounce censure, but 
we should understand the mental attitude and be sympathetic. 
These are perfectly normal phases of development, peculiar to 
those ages, and will be moulted in due time. 

Because of this blind and excessive fidelity to a course of life 
once assumed, it behooves the guardian of youth to provide de- 
sirable copy for the youth to imitate. Many a youth's aim has 
been low through life simply because he has too early idolized 
unworthy copy. It is highly important that boys and girls 
both see something of the world outside their own circum- 
scribed community before developing too fixedly their ideals of 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 425 

life work, and especially of life companions. Savonarola was 
saved to the world for a monumental work because the ignorant 
shepherdess rejected his suit when he was a callow youth. His 
wanderings caused by his fancied dejection gave him an en- 
larged horizon and higher ideals. 

Baldwin has emphasized the necessity of varied copy, saying: 
"Observers should report with especial care all cases of un- 
usually close relationship between children in youth, such as 
childish favoritism, 'platonic friendships,' 'chumming,' in school 
or home, etc. We have in these facts — and there is a very great 
variety of them — an exaggeration of the social or imitative 
tendency, a narrowing down of the personal suggestive sensi- 
bility to a peculiar line of well-formed influences. It has never 
been studied by writers either on the genesis of social emotion or 
on the practice of education. To be sure, teachers are alive to 
the pros and cons of allowing children and students to room 
together; but it is with a view to the possibility of direct immoral 
or unwholesome contagion. This danger is certainly real; but 
we, as psychological observers, and above all as teachers and lead- 
ers, of our children, must go even deeper than that. Consider, 
for example, the possible influence of a school chum and room- 
mate upon a girl in her teens; for this is only an evident case of 
what all isolated children are subject to. A sensitive nature, a 
girl whose very life is a branch of a social tree, is placed in a new 
environment, to engraft upon the members of her mutilated 
self — her very personality; it is nothing less than that — utterly 
new channels of supply. The only safety possible, the only way 
to conserve the lessons of her past, apart from the veriest chance, 
and to add to the structure of her present character, lies in se- 
curing for her the greatest possible variety of social influences. 
Instead of this she meets, eats, walks, talks, lies down at night, 
and rises in the morning, with one other person, a 'copy' set 
before her, as immature in all likelihood as herself, or, if not so, 
yet a single personality, put there to wrap around her growing 
self the confining cords of unassimilated and foreign habit. 
Above all things, fathers, mothers, teachers, elders, give the 



426 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

children room ! They need all that they can get, and their per- 
sonalities will grow to fill it. Give them plenty of companions, 
fill their lives with variety — variety is the soul of originality, and 
its only source of supply. The ethical life itself, the boy's, the 
girl's conscience, is born in the stress of the conflicts of sugges- 
tion, born right out of his imitative hesitations; and just this is 
the analogy which he must assimilate and depend upon in his 
own conflicts for self-control and social continence. So im- 
pressively true is this from the human point of view, that in my 
opinion — formed, it is true, from the very few data accessible 
on such points, still a positive opinion — children should never 
be allowed, after infancy, to room regularly together; special 
friendships of a close, exclusive kind should be discouraged or 
broken up, except when under the immediate eye of the wise 
parent or guardian; and even when allowed, these relationships 
should, in all cases, be used to entrain the sympathetic and moral 
sentiments into a wider field of social exercise." l 

Imitation in School Government. — It has been said that as 
is the teacher so is the school, and no doubt Channing was right 
when he said that "a boy compelled for six hours a day to see the 
countenance and hear the voice of a fretful, unkind, hard or pas- 
sionate man is placed in a school of vice." But I am inclined to 
think we overrate the teacher's influence, and underrate the in- 
fluence of pupil companions. A study of what children imitate 
most has revealed to me that children imitate other children, 
usually those slightly older than themselves, more than they do 
adults. Let a few children become interested in some new 
game or play and it usually spreads all over a city. From time 
to time there are epidemics of playing marbles, tops, circus, 
jack-o'-lanterns, foot-ball, base-ball, shinny, etc. 

The particular code of honor in a school, the things that are 
tabooed, and the general moral tone of the school also depend 
far more upon the school community than upon the teacher. 
We send our boys to be educated by the school-master, but the 
school-boys educate them. The moral tone of a school is very 

1 Mental Development, p. 358. 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 427 

much affected by imitation. If a teacher can secure the co- 
operation of a few real leaders, it does much more to change the 
moral tone than any amount of lecturing or preaching. Get a 
few leaders started and the effect spreads like contagion. The 
teacher must always see to it that the leaders, those whose 
opinion is deemed important, are on her side. Public opinion is 
largely the opinion of leaders. This is true in politics, and 
equally true in school circles. This public opinion is a most 
powerful shibboleth. Let the teacher keep the leaders sympa- 
thetic. She can then run their opinions into any desired mould. 
With the leaders enlisted on her side and the cause of right, 
mere school government is an easy affair. The hearts of the 
multitude cannot be entirely changed all at oiice. Other coun- 
ter influences may be strong, but when once the wide-spread 
influence of imitation is recognized; when it is comprehended 
that we are to imitate whether we will or not, there will be much 
more attention paid to the "copy" that is placed or allowed 
before children. 

It is not a new thing for solicitous parents to try to keep bad 
and vicious companions away from their children, but they usu- 
ally think little of the positive effects of good copy. The right 
kind of playmates for a child in its impressionable years may 
save many school bills, and even doctor's bills. It takes years 
and many school-masters to teach what ought to have been 
gained silently, surely, unthinkingly, through imitation of worthy 
associates, and to help unlearn the undesirable things learned 
by the same inevitable, imitative process from vicious compan- 
ions. 

Take, for example, the code with respect to " tattling." While 
any fair-minded person would denounce that kind of tattling 
which informs for the selfish satisfaction of getting the other 
fellow punished, yet who cannot see that not to inform against 
an enemy to common welfare is to be a silent partner to the 
crime? To be an informer against all enemies of the public is 
one of the most fundamental civic virtues. Yet a foolish mis- 
interpretation of the literal expression has become a false code 



428 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of honor, fostered in school and perpetuated in civic life. How 
many shrink from attempting to right public abuses because the 
injury has not become so personal as to be felt! The public busi- 
ness becomes no part of any individual's business. As in school 
they felt it to be the teacher's business to right evils, they now 
turn it entirely over to the police, and then grumble at the cor- 
ruption in public affairs. One can be a flagrant sinner "by 
minding his own business." There are sins of omission as well 
as of commission. Our greatest civic sin is neglect of the public 
weal. While we fold our hands, stop our ears, and blind our 
eyes the council barters away the franchise, the sheriff pockets 
his usurious fees, the tax-collector keeps all that sticks to his 
fingers, the money kings hide their taxable property, the corpo- 
rations swindle the patient public, and the patent-medicine 
man saps the life and vigor from the commonwealth. We 
know all these things are going on, but we believe in "mind- 
ing our own business." Children must be taught in school 
that a rebel against the welfare of the school is a public male- 
factor. 

Nearly all the rules, regulations, and machinery of govern- 
ment in school are, in point of importance and efficiency, of 
minor potency when compared with the public opinion of the 
school. The school becomes what pupils sanction. The teacher 
who inspires high ideals of the relations the pupils should bear 
toward the school will have no difficulty in government. Many 
schools, regrettably, have never glimpsed true ideals of these re- 
lations, because the narrow teachers themselves have not com- 
prehended them. The teacher who comports himself as a po- 
liceman and detective is surely imitated in his ideals, and usually 
plays a sorry game. 

We hear, nowadays, much about self-government in schools. 
The tendency is to evolve a complex system of machinery 
whereby the pupils may themselves enact and execute laws and 
even punish offenders for their infraction. No system of school 
governmental machinery of itself, however, can secure self-gov- 
ernment. The only secret worth striving to discover is that of se- 



IMITATION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 429 

curing a feeling of mutual ownership of the school. That secured, 
the machinery is largely rendered unnecessary. Pupils are too 
apt to feel no sense of partnership in the school, and no sense of 
responsibility for its good name. School public opinion has 
thrown the whole responsibility upon the teachers, and instead of 
feeling happy in the success of the school, the pupils have even 
often felt a secret delight in the failure of what is to them some 
one else's affair. False codes of honor are by no means un- 
common. Many a boy who would sooner cut off his right hand 
than inform the authorities of offences against their mutual wel- 
fare, would not hesitate to crib from his neighbors on examina- 
tion. No teacher can abolish cribbing, hazing, or bullying by 
an edict, but once let him create a public opinion against it, 
and woe to the offender. Even little children will often com- 
mit flagrant disobedience of parents' commands rather than 
disregard the mandates of the public opinion of their own 
circle. 

Social Responsibilities Because of Imitation. — The laws of 
imitation place great responsibilities upon every individual in 
society. Every one, unless isolated even more than Robinson 
Crusoe, is a part of somebody's environment. Every action has 
some influence upon others as well as upon one's self. Thus is 
each one his brother's keeper. When we come to understand 
the influence of others upon us, the influence other children 
exert upon our children, we shall then be more solicitous to 
secure only wholesome, elevating surroundings for ourselves 
and our children. We shall be almost as deeply concerned about 
educating our neighbor's children properly as we are about our 
own, for in the widest sense we cannot educate a given indi- 
vidual properly without suitable environment. Every man is a 
product of the time in which he lives. A great statesman can- 
not be produced without a great state. A great scholar rarely 
lives in an unscholarly time or place. Therefore every parent 
who wishes to educate his children in intellectuality, morality, 
and virtue must seek those conditions as an environment. No 
one who desires to educate his children properly, moves to the 



430 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

slums; no, he moves where culture is highest, not because good 
teachers are not obtainable for the slum district, but because of 
all the other contributory factors. While many seek these con- 
ditions, few realize their duty in creating them. 



CHAPTER XVII 

SENSORY EDUCATION 

The Doctrine of Innate Ideas. — "Nihil est in intellectu quod 
non prius fuerit in sensu." Wise words of Comenius written 
so long ago, but so tardily understood by the world! The 
psychological doctrine maintaining that all ideas are innate, 
which was held by most people down to the time of John Locke 
in the seventeenth century, led to its pedagogical corollary, that 
the purpose of education is not to supply ideas at all, but merely 
to draw out those already possessed by the individual. We 
read Socrates's proclamation that the science of teaching is a 
science of maieutics, or the science of giving birth to ideas. 
This view of the origin of ideas led men to seek knowledge of all 
things within themselves, and the final tribunal of the validity of 
all knowledge was the reason. Hence the Middle Age scholas- 
ticism was characterized by acuity of dialectical, deductive rea- 
soning and extreme deference to authority. No experimental in- 
vestigation was carried on, nature was not interrogated to give 
up her secrets, but premises, often fantastic, absurd, untrue, 
were set up, and conclusions deduced therefrom. The schoolmen 
spun exceedingly delicate webs of beautiful logic, but only to 
become hopelessly entangled in retarding, benighting veils of 
ignorance, superstition, and misdeed. Then followed the Renais- 
sance, which was characterized by the assertion of individual, 
spiritual independence, and the severance of bonds of authority. 
Post-Renaissance teachers turned to the study of nature, but 
they studied it by proxy, i. e., through the medium of books. 
They have been denominated in the history of education as verbal 
realists. Unfortunately, the verbal realists are not all dead yet. 
Verbal realists of the wordiest kind still exist, who, for example, 

431 



432 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

teach geography as a matter of definitions and book descriptions, 
who teach physics without laboratory and experiment, who read 
about chemical action instead of producing it and observing it, 
who teach civil government by requiring pupils to memorize the 
Constitution verbatim and never to see a concrete illustration of 
its workings. 

Change from Utilitarian to Disciplinary Viewsi — Subject-mat- 
ter in early schools was chosen because of its immediate utility 
in furthering the ecclesiastical ideal. With the Revival of -Learn- 
ing a new ideal appeared along with the old. The subjects 
which had been regarded as instruments then came to be con- 
sidered as the sole ends of instruction. A blind worship of an- 
tiquity developed a fetichism for the means of ancient culture and 
expression. Dittes writes that " education in the form that it 
had assumed in the sixteenth century, could not furnish a com- 
plete human culture. In the higher institutions, and even in the 
wretched town schools, Latin was the Moloch to which count- 
less minds fell an offering, in return for the blessing granted to 
a few. A dead knowledge of words took the place of a living 
knowledge of things. Latin school-books supplanted the book 
of nature, the book of life, the book of mankind. And in the 
popular schools youthful minds were tortured over the spelling- 
book and catechism. The method of teaching was almost 
everywhere, in the primary as well as in the higher schools, a 
mechanical and compulsory drill in unintelligible formulas; the 
pupils were obliged to learn, but they were not educated to see 
and hear, to think and prove, and were not led to a true inde- 
pendence and personal perfection." 

Beginnings of Realism. — Painter has aptly summarized the 
beginnings of the new movement in the following words: 1 " By 
the side of narrow theological and humanistic tendencies, there 
was developed a liberal progressive spirit, in which lay the hope 
of the future. It freed itself from traditional opinions, and 
pushed its investigations everywhere in search of new truth. In 
England Bacon set forth his inductive method, by which he 

1 History of Education, p. 173. 



SENSORY EDUCATION 433 

gave an immense impulse to the study of nature; in France 
Descartes laid a solid foundation for intellectual science; and in 
Germany Leibnitz quickly reached the bound and farthest limit 
of human wisdom, to overleap that line and push onward into 
regions hitherto unexplored, and dwell among yet undiscov- 
ered truths. Great progress was made in the natural sciences. 
Galileo invented the telescope, and discovered the moons of Ju- 
piter. Newton discovered the law of gravitation, and explained 
the theory of colors. Harvey found out the circulation of the 
blood. Torricelli invented the barometer, Guericke the air- 
pump, Napier logarithms. Pascal ascertained that the air has 
weight, and Roemer measured the velocity of light. Kepler 
announced the laws of planetary motion. Louis XIV estab- 
lished the French Academy of Sciences, and Charles' II the 
Royal Society of England." 

Karl Schmidt wrote of the time: "Books, words had been the 
subjects of instruction during the period of abstract theological 
education. The knowledge of things was wanting. Instead 
of the things themselves, words about the things were taught — 
and these taken from the books of the 'ancients' about stars, 
the forces of nature, stones, plants, animals — astronomy without 
observations, anatomy without dissection of the human body, 
physics without experiments, etc. Then appeared in the most 
different countries of Europe an intellectual league of men who 
made it their work to turn away from dead words to living 
nature, and from mechanical to organic instruction. They 
were, indeed, only preachers in the wilderness, but they were 
the pioneers of a new age." 

Rabelais (1483-1553) introduced the first note of realism in 
his pedagogical writings as opposed to the formalism of scholas- 
ticism. The great Erasmus had even deemed it nonsense to 
wash more than once a day. But Rabelais, a physician, urged 
physical education and enjoined personal hygiene. An active 
life in the open air is the best antidote to paleness from book 
work. Lessons are to be followed by play. Of his hypotheti- 
cal ideal pupil, Gargantua, he said: "He exercises his body just 



434 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

as vigorously as he had before exercised his mind." Tennis, 
ball, riding, wrestling, swimming, and all known recreative 
exercises entered into the desired educational activities. He also 
wished to have his pupil secure his knowledge through personal 
observation and experience. The Georgics of Vergil are to be 
read while in the meadows and woods. Excursions are to be 
made, botany and geology are to be studied while "passing 
through meadows or other grassy places, observing trees and 
plants, comparing them with ancient books where they are de- 
scribed . . . and taking handfuls of them home." 

Compayre, commenting upon Gargantua's training, writes: 1 
"There are but few didactic lessons: intuitive instruction, given 
in the presence of the objects themselves, such is the method of 
Rabelais. It is in the same spirit that he sends his pupil to visit 
the stores of the silversmiths, the foundries, the alchemists' 
laboratories, and shops of all kinds — real scientific excursions 
such as are in vogue to-day." Montaigne joined in the reac- 
tion against empty scholasticism. He cared little whether the 
pupil learned to write in Latin. "If his soul be not put into 
better rhythm, if the judgment be not better settled, I would 
rather have him spend his time at tennis." 2 He argued that 
things should precede words, saying: "Let our pupil be pro- 
vided with things; words will follow only too fast." 3 

Sir Francis Bacon (i 561- 1626) stands out pre-eminently 
among the pioneer exponents of the new doctrine of sense realism 
in education. The formulator of a new method, that of induc- 
tion, he made men aware of an instrument of thinking of which 
they had not been conscious. Bound down to the methods of 
deduction as men had been for centuries, they had helplessly re- 
lied upon authority and tradition for all the knowledge handed 
down to them. During the period of scholasticism investiga- 
tion proceeded only as necromancy, astrology, or alchemy, and 
was generally branded as a black art. Many like Roger Bacon, 
Bruno, Kepler, and Galileo paid dearly for their temerity in 

1 The History of Pedagogy, p. 97. 

2 Book I, chap. 24. 3 Book I, chap. 25. 



SENSORY EDUCATION 435 

dabbling with the secrets of nature. Bacon's works were burnt, 
Kepler persecuted, Galileo forced to retract, and Bruno im- 
prisoned, excommunicated, and finally burnt at the stake. 
Bacon holds up to ridicule the scholastic methods whereby 
men, "out of no quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, 
spin cob-webs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread 
and work, but of no substance or profit." He teaches the ne- 
cessity for investigation, experiment, and individual verification 
of data. Man is implored to use his eyes, his ears, all his senses, 
in exploring the unknown universe. All study is to be made 
personal, concrete, and objective. 

Comenius (1592-1670) pondered and expounded Bacon's 
inductive philosophy, and in addition seized the opportune 
moment for developing the educational psychology of sense 
realism which Bacon had only hinted at. In fact, Bacon had 
been interested only secondarily in educative processes but pri- 
marily in securing practical results. Comenius previses many of 
the most important biological laws of development and seeks 
to secure the natural unfoldment of the powers, bodily and 
mental, of the child. He is the first great sense realist, recog- 
nizing the function of the senses in revealing and reporting, the 
world to the mind. He says: "It is certain that there is nothing 
in the understanding that was not first in the senses, and con- 
sequently, it is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, of all elo- 
quence, and of all good and prudent conduct, carefully to train 
the senses to note with accuracy the differences between natural 
objects. . . . We must offer to the young, not the shadows 
of things, but the things themselves, which impress the senses and 
the imagination. Instruction should commence with a real ob- 
servation of things, and not with a verbal description of them. 
... In the place of dead books, why should we not open the 
living book of nature? . . . To instruct the young is not to 
beat into them by repetition a mass of words, phrases, sentences, 
and opinions gathered out of authors; but it is to open their 
understanding through things. ..." Comenius gave to the 
world the first illustrated text-book, the Orbis Sensualium P ictus. 



436 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

It was a practical attempt to apply his new doctrine. The book 
achieved great popularity, being translated into every civilized 
language, and served as a model for innumerable imitations. He 
urged the importance of physical training. He also maintained 
that ''the exact order of instruction must be borrowed from 
nature" and recognized that plasticity is greatest in childhood. 
He wrote: "A man can most easily be formed in early youth, 
and cannot be formed properly except at this age." 

Meaning of the Renaissance for Education. — The breaking 
away from the enthralling methods of scholasticism is what the 
Renaissance stands for. The school of naturalists led by such 
men as Roger Bacon, Dante, Petrarch, Luther, Rabelais, Mon- 
taigne, Rousseau, Lord Bacon, and Locke, preached a new doc- 
trine of individual intellectual liberty. Investigation instead of 
blind acceptance of authority became permissible. Facts were 
accumulated, their relations studied, and the conclusions tested 
by further investigation. With this new method science was 
ushered in. Everything in science that was known previous to 
the Middle Ages could be blotted out and the world would in no 
wise suffer. With the spread of Comenius's new doctrine that 
all knowledge takes its rise in the senses, new methods of teach- 
ing came as a necessary corollary. Objective and concrete 
teaching were a necessary consequence. No knowledge could 
be real which had not been gained at first hand. Words mean 
nothing unless they are the symbols of realities. Pursuant to 
this newer doctrine we have constructed laboratories, gathered 
museums, developed pictorial representation, encouraged ex- 
cursions, counselled personal observation, and in multitudes of 
ways have tried to make knowledge real. To say that all 
teachers understand this and heed its mandates would be wide 
of the mark. Thousands are in the Middle Ages professionally, 
but the times are hopeful. 

Importance of Sense-Perceptions. — Every one now readily ad- 
mits that sensory training is desirable as a means of education. 
There is, however, much ignorance as to the real meaning of the 
process, and of the means to be employed in securing sensory 



SENSORY EDUCATION 437 

training. There are many who still teach as if all ideas were 
innate and the only function of teaching were to bring these ideas 
to consciousness through the medium of words. Little do they 
seem to realize that the child's whole mental life is determined 
and circumscribed by the range of his sensory experiences. 
Without these perceptions not only would the lower powers of 
the mind be lacking, but the growth of the higher powers, like 
judgment, reason, and volition, would be impossible. As Dexter 
and Garlick have asserted, 1 "Accurate sense-perceptions are the 
best and indeed the only preliminaries to accurate reasoning. 
. . . The teacher who tries to train the powers of judgment 
and reasoning upon incomplete and inaccurate sense-percep- 
tions is like the man who built his house upon the sand. The 
wise teacher endeavors to build up the intellectual edifice upon 
the rock of well-ordered and carefully trained sense-percepts." 

To show strikingly how important the education of a sense is, 
we may refer to those cases where persons have been blind and 
have later received the power of sight through an operation. A 
boy who had thus been made to see was shown his pet cat with 
which he was so familiar. He stared at it in amazement with- 
out being able to comprehend. Finally he took hold of the cat 
and felt her all over while looking at her. He gained a new 
idea entirely, and said, "Now, kitty, after this I shall be able 
to know you when I see you." Ziehen gives an illustration which 
shows that modes of perceiving become so persistent that it may 
even be impossible to establish the mode "natural" to normal 
persons. He writes: 2 "A certain individual, who had been 
born blind, was unable to form any idea of a square, even upon 
seeing it after his sight had been restored by an operation, until 
he began to perceive a sensation in the tips of his fingers as 
though he were really engaged in touching the object at which he 
was looking. The patient had constant recourse to his sense 
of touch, just as the normal man resorts to his sense of sight in 
the recognition of objects." 

1 Psychology in the Schoolroom, p. 99. 

2 Introduction to Physiological Psychology, p. 87. 



438 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

A similar case has been reported by Dr. Miner from the 
psychological laboratory of the State University of Iowa. It is 
probably the best study on record of such cases, from the psy- 
chological point of view. The subject, Miss W., had complete 
cataracts in both eyes, and was reported as blind from birth. 
Both cataracts were removed by Dr. L. W. Dean, professor of 
opthalmology in the University of Iowa. i\t the time of the 
operation she was twenty-two years of age, and had received the 
high-school education in the State School for the Blind. Dr. 
Miner's investigations were conducted nearly three years after 
sight was restored to the right eye, and nearly two years after the 
operation upon the left eye. Among other tests, Dr. Miner made 
a very careful study of her stock of visual knowledge, and her 
mode of acquiring visual ideas. Even after the considerable 
time that had elapsed since she began to acquire ideas by sight, 
she was found very deficient in this respect. In Dr. Miner's 
words, "Miss W. was still completely naive to many of the 
normal experiences of an adult. She had never looked through 
a stereoscope, opera-glass, field-glass, or telescope. She had 
never used both eyes together enough to find out any differences 
between monocular and binocular vision. She had not yet 
learned to translate her visual images into terms of movement 
with any degree of success, except in case of the most simple 
forms and numbers, or with common objects of her previous 
touch experience. She knew practically nothing about draw- 
ings or pictures. She had not even learned to identify people 
by their faces; those whom she thought she knew by their 
features were her mother, father, sister, a teacher at the school, 
and the nurse who was with her during the operation. Although 
I worked with her every day for over a month, and she saw Dr. 
Dean often, I believe she cannot recognize either of us by 
sight." She recognized persons mainly by the sound of the 
voice. She possessed an "all-powerful impulse to explain any- 
thing new by referring it at once to the language of her sight- 
less experience." In counting the sides of a hexagon, for ex- 
ample, she used some sort of muscular movement to register 



SENSORY EDUCATION 439 

each number. "She would tap with her fingers or foot, press 
her teeth together, or her tongue against her teeth, move her 
head, regulate her breathing, or even slightly wink at each 
corner, in order to register that as number one before passing 
to the next." For a long time shadows seemed like real objects 
to her, and she often walked around them. Because she could 
not judge distances accurately, she frequently upset dishes on 
the table. In learning through reading or hearing, she re- 
peated everything to herself, translating everything into motor 
terms. 1 

If a child is blind from birth it is therefore deprived of a class 
of experiences which can never be acquired through any other 
means. Stop the ears of the same child and another gateway 
of the soul is closed. Suppose the same child is deprived of the 
senses of taste, of smell, of temperature, of weight, of direction, 
of touch — and all the rest. What happens? All of the gate- 
ways to the soul are closed and the child grows up mindless — 
an idiot. Each sense supplies the mind with information of 
its own peculiar sort. The eye is fitted to respond to waves of 
light, the ear to waves of sound, and no other part of the body 
can act as a substitute. The eye is dead to waves of sound, the 
ear to light, and the sense of touch does not respond to odors. 
One who is deprived of a single sense, or who is defective in that 
sense, is caused to limp mentally just as surely as one must limp 
when a leg is amputated. Helen Keller has never known color 
as those of us who see it know it. She knows nothing of the 
melodies of sounds in nature as we who hear know of them. It 
should be remembered, also, that exercise of the senses must be 
secured at the right time. If early life passes without ample 
opportunity for sensory exercise, arrested development ensues, 
almost as disastrous as if the centres had been destroyed. 

Meaning of Sensory Training. — By training a sense, we mean 
acquiring a rich fund of experiences through that sense, thus en- 
abling one to react to a great variety of stimuli which come to 

1 Miner, J. B., "A Case of Vision Acquired in Adult Life," Psychological 
Review, Monograph Supplement, March, 1905. 



440 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

that sense. An untrained sense is one which reacts to only a 
few of the stimuli which might awaken it. Images of flowers, of 
the rainbow, of works of art, strike the retina of the dog, but 
are unseen in any real sense; the strains of Beethoven's sonatas 
strike the untrained ear of the child and awaken no responsive 
chords; the unlettered man views a page of print and sees only 
black pothooks and crooks; each one of us goes about the world 
blind, deaf, and anaesthetic to manifold stimuli from light, 
sound, touch, taste, and smell. The end organs of sense may 
be perfect, the sensorium in the best of health, the nerve con- 
nections unimpaired, yet we are blind as bats and deaf as adders 
to myriads of stimuli. One may even be an expert in certain 
realms of sight, sound, or touch and yet be almost idiotic in 
other realms of sight, sound, or touch. For example, the trained 
telegrapher's ear may be without the slightest appreciation of 
musical harmonies, the hawk-eyed Indian looks with dull 
psychic vision upon the printed page, while a proof-reader might 
readily get lost in woods where the Indian would note and re- 
member every rock, tree, and pathway. The shrewd agricult- 
urist who sees the fine points in a Percheron, a Durham, or 
a corn-field, may be oblivious to the connoisseur's criteria of 
a classical painting. Dr. Hinsdale has said: "The Indian's 
boasted faculty is limited to his native environment; introduced 
into Cheapside or the Strand, he sees nothing compared- with 
Sam Weller or one of Fagin's pupils." 

The point is, that training the senses means acquiring rich 
funds of experience through the senses in order to interpret 
still larger funds of experience by means of the knowledge pre- 
viously acquired through personal experience. The botanist 
has well-trained eyes for things botanical, the geologist for things 
geological, the grammarian for fine points in grammar, and the 
milliner for spring fashions. It is quite possible that a given 
individual may have all his senses keen, and be alert in a great 
variety of directions. That is an ideal development. Well- 
trained senses mean a mind richly supplied with apperceptive 
material gained from a variety of objects, received through a 



SENSORY EDUCATION 441 

variety of stimuli. Hence ,the purpose of sense-training should 
be, first, to utilize the senses in gaining first-hand experiences 
from the world of objects about us; and second, to gain this 
knowledge in as many ways as possible. The one who hears 
music only gets a limited experience. The one who sees the 
printed notes and observes the musician and the instrument gets 
added perceptions; the one who actually produces the same 
music gets decidedly more and better perceptions than the other 
two. Musical knowledge is indeed imperfect until the last type 
of experience is added to the others. 

In considering sensory training, the function of the nervous 
system, especially the brain, must not be forgotten. Sight, 
hearing, touch, and all the rest would be impossible without the 
cerebral cortex. Sever the optic nerve and we have a world of 
darkness; destroy the auditory nerve and all is hushed and 
silent as the tomb. The end organs may be perfect, the con- 
ducting or afferent nerves unharmed, but if the specialized 
central areas are functionless the signs given through the end 
organs of sense remain untranslated. Halleck says 1 that 
"psychic blindness is lack of recognition of an object that is 
actually seen. Thus, when the brain of a frog or a pigeon is 
removed, the animal may still see objects and avoid them when 
it moves, but the fact that such a pigeon has no fear of a cat or 
any other object shows that psychic blindness exists. Objects 
are seen, but not recognized. Sensorial blindness exists when 
no sensation from light is experienced. A Scotchman met with 
an accident that brought on him psychic blindness. He saw 
physically as well as ever, but he could not interpret what he 
saw. He would look at the most familiar objects and be utterly 
unable to recognize them. He would gaze at his New Testa- 
ment without knowing what the object was until he ran his 
hand over the smooth cover, when he immediately recognized it. 
When a piece of detached bone, pressing on the centre for vision 
in his brain, was removed, he recovered his power of mentally 
interpreting what he saw." 

1 Education of the Central Nervous System, p. 17. 



442 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Real Beginnings of Sense Training. — Sensory training begins 
at birth, and should be kept up through life. We should not pro- 
ceed as though we were going to exercise until reaching a stand- 
ard of cultivation, and then expect the same proficiency in the 
given sense for all kinds of objective material. That is, there is 
no general training which will secure equal development for all 
kinds of special knowledge. The complete meaning of this will 
be discussed under the topic of Formal Discipline. The aim 
should be rather to use the sense to the best advantage as a means 
of knowledge-getting. Constant use and practice will improve 
the various powers involved so that general strength results. 
The basis of sensory training is contact with objective reality. 
By force of circumstances the child receives innumerable sen- 
sory stimulations through light, sound waves, physical contact 
with things, etc. Myriads of stimuli come to the child un- 
sought, many undesired and many undesirable. So James 
says "the world presents itself to the child as one big, buzzing, 
blooming confusion." For the first six or seven months, till the 
child can sit alone and reach for things, there is no need of pro- 
viding sense stimulation; till then, a reasonable amount of 
quietude will be more difficult to secure than excitation.. From 
the time the child can sit alone or grasp things and carry them 
to his mouth, he should have various objects to sample. The 
percepts thus slowly gained are indispensable to future higher 
attainments. The ear that is closed, the eye that is blinded, is 
not only lost as an avenue of knowledge, but the mind of the 
possessor is circumscribed and dwarfed because lacking certain 
fundamental kinds of knowledge. The congenitally blind can 
never know color, though they learn its entire nomenclature; 
their knowledge of form, size, and perspective is circumscribed; 
while they can never know complex things as wholes as the 
seeing do. The deaf have no concept of sound — only word 
ideas about it. 

The child's building-blocks furnish much valuable sensory 
material. Laurie believes that " the flat brick with toothed ends, 
admitting of one being fitted into another, is of more value than 



SENSORY EDUCATION 443 

all the Froebelian gifts." 1 As soon as the child creeps he begins 
to get ideas of an extended environment. With walking he is put 
in possession of a means of exploring an enlarged world. During 
early years the child should come into direct personal contact 
with a large range of objects. The field, forest, and factory 
should all be explored and examined. He should literally and 
figuratively leave no stone unturned in his investigations and 
explorations. Not only should unharmed nature and primeval 
forests be interrogated, but applied science has furnished mul- 
titudes of examples as worthy objects of inspection. The 
microscopic features, the visible workings, and many of the 
whys relating thereto should be learned concerning all the ob- 
jects reasonably accessible. What nonsense to first study steam- 
engines, telegraphs, plants, animals, birds, and rocks from 
books! The only excuse for book study at all is that we may 
study things not accessible and that we may be enabled in ad- 
vanced stages to study the object to advantage. Darwin's 
epoch-making contributions could never have appeared had he 
not examined at first hand a large part of the material mentioned. 
No progress in any line of science or art is ever made by those 
who have not an observational knowledge of the objects of their 
search. The astronomer sweeps the heavens with his eye, 
bringing to the aid of his limited vision distance-annihilating 
telescopes, and the biologist searches in the laboratory with eyes 
made a thousand times acuter by the microscope. "Aristotle 
knew the importance of asking nature for facts, and he induced 
his royal pupil, Alexander the Great, to employ two thousand 
persons in Europe, Asia, and Africa for the purpose of gather- 
ing information concerning beasts, birds, and reptiles, whereby 
he was enabled to write fifty volumes upon animated nature. 
After teachers had forgotten his methods they still turned to his 
books for the treasures which he had gathered." 2 

Function of Guidance. — In the tender years of childhood 
the chief thing is to provide sufficient opportunities for personal 

1 Institutes of Education, p. 117. 

2 Schaeffer, Thinking and Learning to Think, p. 61. 



444 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

observation of a wide range of objects. Though the child may 
be aided by suggestion and question, and by having his inter- 
rogations satisfied, too much surveillance should not be exer- 
cised. Some believe that no guidance whatever should be ex- 
ercised, but this is manifestly an extreme view, and erroneous. 
For example, a goodly part of the aural sensations emanate in 
speech. Surely he should be shielded from hearing harmful or 
vicious speech and should be guided in its reproduction, being 
even consciously trained in the correct utterance of difficult 
combinations to insure against fixed habits of mispronuncia- 
tions. Sights worthy of view and unsuggestive of evil should 
certainly be selected, while demoralizing actions should be 
religiously guarded against. When the child begins reading, 
there must be very definite guidance in correct vision and in 
accurate imitation of phonetic combinations. This means 
auditory training also. Touch is trained in walking, writing, 
talking, posing, etc. 

Training should not degenerate into formal gymnastics, but 
should be a means to an end. Only in this way can interest be 
maintained and proper cultivation secured. Training which 
subserves a useful end is as superior to seeing and hearing for the 
sake of hearing and seeing, as going to some definite place is 
superior to merely lifting the feet and setting them down in a 
treadmill. But when either physical or mental exercise degener- 
ates into merely obeying directions without comprehension or 
interest, the pupil's time is worse than wasted. Mere idleness 
were usually better. For training the senses a good many 
writers have prescribed artificial exercises, wholly dissociated 
from any desired end. The results must be stultifying. The 
conscious aim should not be to train the power, but to use it 
intelligently in acquiring knowledge. The training will take 
care of itself if the power is employed naturally in acquiring 
knowledge possessing intrinsic worth. Possibly a game might 
be made of the exercise so that a little zest would enter in; but 
to have just so much seeing, so much hearing, so much smelling, 
so much tasting, and so much finger-bending each day would be 



SENSORY EDUCATION 445 

a splendid example of formal discipline. Unfortunately, I have 
seen just such exercises and for the purpose of formal discipline. 
Even physical work in a gymnasium can be carried on only 
under the stimulus of a game, the acquisition of a bold feat, or 
something of the kind. So in school training a definite end 
enlisting the right emotional attitude should ever be present. 

Laurie remarks: 1 "Some people would make the child ex- 
act from the first. . . . Let the child alone: let him be the 
victim of the myriad sensations which pour in on him. The soil 
may be growing nothing, but it is being fertilized with a view 
to a future harvest. It is mere pedantry to interfere at this stage, 
and the result will be, or ought to be, narrow and pedantic. By 
all means provide raw material for the child, but leave him 
alone to make what he can of it. By all means give him paper, 
and pencils, and painting brushes, and colors, and bricks, and 
spades; but let him alone. We were not sent into this world to 
be manufactured by pedants, but to grow from our own roots 
and soil. Up to the age of six, whatever else is done, let there 
be no interference with the freedom of sensation, but rather en- 
courage contact with all forms of existence, and promote the 
natural activity of the child in every direction." 

The training begun before school-days should not be aban- 
doned on entering school. Increased opportunity for more ex- 
tended observations should be afforded. The training should 
become more intentional, more definite things should be seen, 
and descriptions, at first oral, of what is seen should become 
daily more accurate; though indefiniteness, vagueness, naivete, 
must be expected through many years. A great variety of 
things must be brought to the child, when impossible to take the 
child to them. That is, specimens, samples, pictures of the 
great, busy world, should be collected into museums, cabinets, 
and laboratories, where children may learn of nature, art, in- 
dustries, marts of trade, commerce, shipping, mining, etc. A 
chance to see and examine the local region under competent 
guidance should be afforded every child. For, unfortunately, the 

1 Institutes of Education, p. 115. 



446 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

pupil often first becomes acquainted with his home locality 
through reading. The knowledge thus acquired never possesses 
the vividness and interest that real personal acquaintance gives 
its possessor. Field, forest, and stream should be explored and 
importuned to yield their secrets. The children should, like 
Shakespeare's Duke, find "tongues in trees, books in the running 
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

Object-Lessons. — The purpose of object-lessons is to bring to 
the learner first-hand experiences. Object-lessons are begun in 
the cradle and should be a part of daily experiences throughout 
life. The object-lessons of pre-school days have been unsys- 
tematic, largely fortuitous, unpremeditated, and in a large 
measure have not been the cause of purposive reflection. In 
school object-lessons are to be given with definite purpose and 
intended to make clear certain fundamental facts. They are 
also to be considered relationally for the purpose of causing 
reflection. It is not to be understood that a "course in object- 
lessons" is to be given. Objective illustration should be a part 
of the instruction in each and every branch in school. Objec- 
tive illustration is necessary because "all knowledge takes its 
rise in the senses." Objective illustrations should be given 
whenever the elemental ideas' in any topic are not easily cognized 
through imagination and reflection. Their necessity is as great 
in the university as in the primary school. In the words of Dr. 
White, "the primary ideas should be taught objectively in all 
grades of school." The meaning of primary or elemental ideas 
needs to be understood. The mind can image any material or 
any combination of material things, provided the elements have 
been derived through perception. Once transcend experience 
of the elements and blankness results. As the congenitally 
blind cannot image color, nor the congenitally deaf, music, a 
normal pupil cannot image a machine unless he has actually seen 
the parts. A new machine as a whole can, of course, often be 
studied as well in diagram as from the object itself. 

Object-lessons are as much a part of reading lessons as of 
chemistry. Whenever fundamentals are lacking through ex- 



SENSORY EDUCATION 447 

perience they should, if possible, be supplied by objective illus- 
tration or pictorial representation. (See Imagination.) A cau- 
tion needs to be offered against too prolonged continuation of 
the objects. Just as soon as sensory experience has been made 
clear the object is no longer needed. In fact, its continuance will 
be positively harmful. Sensory experience is the lowest form of 
knowledge, and is only the raw material for a finer web of 
thought. Dealing with sensory experience when the child should 
be reflecting will surely produce arrested development. As Dr. 
Hinsdale has so well said, "the Realists have deservedly em- 
phasized the value of sense-perception and of sense-teaching in 
education; but they have not emphasized the facts that the 
particular and the concrete mark an early and imperfect stage 
of mental advancement, and that there is no greater clog upon 
mental progress than the habit of thinking it, and that a man's 
thinking capacity is gauged by his power to think general and 
abstract thoughts. Children and savages — all immature minds 
— live in their senses; cultivated men grow out of them. . . . 
The savage is as weak in speculative reflection as he is strong 
in keenness of scent. . . . That is a significant anecdote 
which Dr. Fitch relates of the teacher who was testifying before 
Lord Taunton's Commission as to the extraordinary interest 
which his pupils took in physical science. Asked what depart- 
ment of science most interested his scholars, he replied: 'The 
chemistry of explosive substances.'" 1 

In gaining ideas of number, the child must derive his first 
notions through experiences with concrete things. He must 
learn through actual experiences, the relative magnitude of num- 
bers, the magnitude of number series, and in the same way 
secure a correct idea of the process involved in the various 
computations. But it is pedagogically unwise to have the pupil 
learn every fact and every process objectively. For example, 
3 + 2 or 3 X 2 may be learned objectively, but 9 + 8 or 9 X 8 
never should be. These latter should be taken as authoritative 
statements, unquestioningly. Who knows from objective ex- 

1 Studies in Education, p. 50. 



448 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

perience that 9X8= 72? Whoever first learned it that way is 
to be pitied. The child knows from counting that 8 q's are 
more than 7 9's, and also knows from counting the relative 
places of 63 and 72, so that when 9X8= 72 is told him it seems 
reasonable. If the table were built up rationally, step by step, 
he would not believe that 9X8= 14, but he could easily be made 
to believe that it equals 73. Many things that we never dem- 
onstrate nevertheless fit into our rational thinking so as to do 
no violence to the usual currents of thought. 

Dr. Schaeffer instances a school in which the principal pro- 
posed concrete work in fractions. "The teachers and pupils 
began to divide things into halves, and thirds, and fourths, and 
sixths. They added and subtracted by subdividing these into 
fractions that denoted equal parts of a unit. Whilst the charm 
of novelty still clung to the process, a stranger who visited the 
school asked one of the teachers how the pupils and parents 
liked the change. 'Everybody is delighted,' was the exclama- 
tion. A year later the same teacher was asked by the visitor, 
'How are you succeeding with your concrete work in fractions?' 
With a dejected air she replied, 'We are disappointed with the 
results.' 'Just as I expected,' exclaimed the visitor; 'for you 
were making the children think on the level of barbarism, in- 
stead of teaching them to use the tools of labor-saving machin- 
ery of modern civilization." * 

As far as possible, object-lessons should be given in their 
natural setting. The object-lesson apart from a life interest 
does not compare with one that grows out of a consideration of 
things in their natural surroundings, and studied as a part of 
every-day life. Dewey may be quoted apropos of this point: 2 
"No number of object-lessons, got up as object-lessons for the 
sake of giving information, can afford even the shadow of a sub- 
stitute for acquaintance with the plants and animals of the farm 
and garden, acquired through actual living among them and 
caring for them. No training of sense-organs in school, intro- 

1 Thinking and Learning to Think, p. 91. 

2 The School and Society, p. 24. 



SENSORY EDUCATION 449 

duced for the sake of training, can begin to compete with the 
alertness and fulness of sense-life that comes through daily in- 
timacy and interest in familiar occupations." In all branches 
of instruction it is important to gain as many ideas as possible 
through objective illustration. The material sciences are not 
the only ones that demand laboratory methods. The school- 
room with apparatus is not the only real laboratory. The school- 
room laboratory, in fact, is only a miniature controllable rep- 
resentation of certain fundamental laws or facts of the great 
laboratories of nature and of life. Teachers of science should 
vitalize their work by utilizing these greater laboratories, by 
affording opportunities to inspect them, and by continually 
showing the applications of all laws and principles in every-day 
life. In fact, applications are more apt to interest than are the 
detached illustrations. 

Excursions. — In Germany the school journey is a unique and 
invaluable means of making instruction real. Not only are brief 
excursions made frequently into the immediate locality, but 
many schools make periodical journeys lasting from three to six 
days. In the former the pupils become thoroughly conversant 
with the points of geographic and historic interest, and with the 
life, about them. This gives an apperceiving background for 
the things not accessible. How many of us have studied the 
botany of rare plants and been ignorant of dozens of common 
species within a stone's throw of our door, or have studied rare 
rock formations from a book when an hour's tramp would have 
made every point tangible. The longer journey may not be 
feasible in a sparsely settled region, but in New England and 
in some other parts of the United States it could be carried out 
to good advantage. 

Efficiency of the Sense-Organs. — After showing at such length 
the exceeding importance of sense-perceptions for all phases of 
mental life, it scarcely needs argument to show the importance 
of keeping the child's sense-organs in the highest possible state 
of efficiency. Yet how many parents and teachers are contin- 
ually negligent in this important matter. The sections on sight 



450 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and hearing set forth through definite statistics the alarming 
prevalence of defective senses. Astigmatism, myopia, color- 
blindness, partial deafness in one or both ears, insensibility to 
pitch differences, total blindness in one eye, total deafness in 
one ear, are not at all uncommon and oftentimes are unsuspected 
by the sufferer. The discussion of heredity admonishes us of 
the great probability of the perpetuation of these infirmities 
through generation after generation. 

How important that teachers be cognizant of these facts and 
that they be sympathetic with children thus afflicted! Many a 
poor child has failed and received harsh criticism from his 
teacher though he has done his best. He has been adjudged 
obstinate and perverse when he is the victim. of circumstances 
over which he has had no control. The teacher needs to possess 
sympathy and patience in dealing with such cases. More than 
that, he needs scientific knowledge enabling him to detect 
defects. Dr. Schaeffer pointedly remarks: 1 "In cases of defec- 
tive eyesight the first step toward the solution of the spelling 
problem, as well as the first condition in teaching the pupil to 
think accurately, is to send him to a skilled oculist. . . . Correct 
vision will assist the pupil not merely in learning the exact form 
of the words which he uses in writing, but also in forming correct 
ideas of the things with which the mind deals in the thought- 
processes." Then there should be the school physician ready 
to pass expert judgment on suspected cases. The school nurse, 
in large cities, should be at hand to minister to those temporarily 
disqualified for efficient work. Greater intelligence upon these 
matters would cause the child with defective senses to be given 
more advantageous positions in class, relieved of certain kinds 
of work, be given extra time, etc. 

It is important to bear in mind that nearly all children begin 
reading and writing too early. They are naturally far-sighted, 
and the excessive strain of reading and writing when immature 
causes near-sightedness. Altogether too much work is copied, 
and usually from the black-board, under atrocious conditions. 

1 Thinking and Learning to Think, p. 51. 



SENSORY EDUCATION 451 

The written examination is fit only for mature persons, but little 
children are annually tortured on this rack. No formal written 
examination ought to be given below the seventh grade. From 
there on they should usually be shorter than they are. It is a 
sad commentary on our methods of teaching that the higher the 
state of education, the more defective in senses and bodily 
conditions people are. Could we but preserve the Greek ideal 
of harmonious bodily and mental development the race would 
grow stronger and more perfect in every bodily feature. There 
are many evidences of a return to that beautiful ideal. May 
its universal acceptance be speeded! 

In regard to the importance of tests for sense-defects, Kotel- 
mann wrote: 1 " It might naturally be supposed that a deficiency 
in hearing so small as to be ascertainable only by means of a 
watch or a whisper, that is, by a delicate test, could be of no 
special disadvantage to pupils, on the ground that they can fol- 
low the recitations in spite of it. But this would be an erroneous 
notion. Of all the requirements made of the ear, one of the 
most difficult is the understanding of language. The cause of 
this is the great number of consonants that are crowded together; 
since these have the nature of noises, they are not so readily 
apprehended as the vowels, which are more like musical tones. 
. . . The ear catches the spoken word as an entirety, needing 
often only a few characteristic sounds for the purpose. For 
this reason a pupil with defective hearing can for some time 
correctly understand lectures, dictations, and similar exercises; 
but his attention will gradually weaken under the severe strain, 
and by failing to hear one or more words he may lose the sense 
altogether. A pupil with normal hearing can in such a case 
usually catch the connection from what follows; while the pupil 
with defective hearing finds it much more difficult to do so. 
His embarrassment is especially great when new words are in- 
volved, as is often the case in foreign languages, history, geogra- 
phy, and natural science, because he finds it impossible to fill 
out the part of the word which he does not hear." And because 

1 School Hygiene, p. 282. 



452 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

his perceptions are vague and indefinite his concepts are of the 
same character and his memories of the subjects rapidly dis- 
appear. 

Relation of Books to Sensory Experiences. — One of the com- 
monest mistakes is to make teaching simply a matter of words. 
From the very fact that schools have properly so much to do 
with books, it is easy to regard teaching as a mere matter of 
memorizing the words of books. It should be remembered that 
books do not deal directly with realities. They only contain 
records about realities. The realities must be acquired through 
personal examination of the realities themselves. Text-books 
must be regarded as texts; the sermons must come from outside 
sources. To be sure, books should serve to, reveal knowledge 
which one might not get so readily or not at all by studying the 
realities alone; but they can only do this when they constantly 
appeal to experiences realized. This is true of the knowledge 
of a dynamo, a potato, or a rock; it is also true of a psychological 
fact, or a philosophical theory. The dynamo is only known 
when it has been made real and is comprehended through 
experience; likewise one knows nothing of a psychological law 
until he has realized it through his own personal experience. 
"Not psychology but to psychologize" should be the end sought 
in that study. 

A boy could never really know skating by hearing lectures 
upon the process. The only way to realize it is to skate. The 
only way to know dancing and writing is to dance and to write. 
The only way to know how to saw boards and make joints is 
actually to do those things. The teacher should scrutinize 
every step in every subject and inquire: "How can I cause the 
boys and girls really to know this step?" If this were done in 
every school-room in the land the educational millennium would 
soon appear on the horizon. Dewey wrote: "What is primarily 
required is first-hand experience. Until recently the school has 
literally been dressed out with hand-me-down garments, with 
intellectual suits which other people have worn." And we might 
add that like all borrowed garments, they are usually misfits. 



SENSORY EDUCATION 453 

Dr. Gordy 1 aptly compared words to paper money, and con- 
sequently, like paper money, "their value depends upon what 
they stand for. As you would be none the richer for possessing 
Confederate money to the amount of a million dollars, so your 
pupil would be none the wiser for being able to repeat book 
after book by heart, unless the words were the signs of ideas in 
their minds. Words without ideas are irredeemable paper cur- 
rency. It is the practical recognition of this truth that has 
revolutionized the best schools in the last quarter of a century. 
... In what did the reform inaugurated by Pestalozzi consist ? 
In the substitution of the intelligent for the blind use of words. 
He reversed the educational engine. Before his time teachers 
expected their pupils to go from words to ideas; he taught them 
to go from ideas to words. He brought out the fact upon which 
I have been insisting — that all they can do is to help the pupil 
to recall and remember ideas already formed. With Pestalozzi, 
therefore, and with those who have been imbued with his theo- 
ries, the important matter is the forming of clear and definite 
ideas." 

Some Ways and Means. — Twenty-five years ago, when I was 
in the high school, we studied physics by the book method. Not 
a single piece of apparatus did the school possess — much less a 
laboratory. Not a pupil in the class performed an experiment, 
nor did the teacher. The nearest approach to the study of 
realities was through the good diagrams and pictures in the 
text and the diagram occasionally drawn on the black-board. 
Astronomy, zoology, and geology were studied in the same school 
and by the same barren verbal method. I think chemistry was 
also studied. Had there been real chemicals and an occasional 
explosion I am sure that I should remember the fumes and the 
explosions. Later pursuit of this subject in a real laboratory 
left me a very definite remembrance of the nature of chemistry. 
In the study of botany we fortunately had a teacher fresh from 
a university, and we studied real, live, growing plants. Unfort- 
unately the main end seemed to be names and classifications, 

1 Lessons in Psychology, p. 260. 



454 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

but in spite of that we handled plants, tramped through swamps 
and over hills, tore our clothes in the thickets of brush, and dis- 
covered where the plants grew, when they grew, and how they 
grew. Those impressions will always remain. Time and dis- 
tance, and other impressions cannot efface them. They were 
my own personal experiences, my own ideas and not Gray's 
nor Apgar's, nor my teacher's. They are mine still. 

In teaching arithmetic it is so easy to contrive means of afford- 
ing sensory experiences and of making things concrete. All 
measures of length, areas, volume, weights, capacity, etc., can 
be readily objectified. Unless gained concretely they never 
mean anything. Children may recite glibly tables of denomi- 
nate numbers and not have a single definite notion of what 
they are mouthing. An acquaintance of mine relates that when 
a boy back in Ohio, one day when they were studying the ani- 
mals of the Rocky Mountains, an itinerant bear-trainer with 
three Rocky Mountain bears passed that way and stopped in 
front of the old log school-house. Here was a grand chance to 
let the children see the real thing. What did that teacher do? 
True to her training and ambition as a strict disciplinarian, and 
true to her ideal that book learning was what the school was 
maintained to give, she sternly ordered all to cease looking out 
of the windows, even rapped some on the head, and commanded: 
" Study your books ! " Recently a teacher told me apologetically 
that when Barnum and Bailey's circus and menagerie was in 
the city she allowed the children a quarter-holiday, and added 
still more apologetically: "I really think they learned almost as 
much as if they had stayed in school." My answer was: " Why, 
bless you, they learned more in that quarter-day about animals 
and many wonders of the world than your school could have 
given them in ten years! In fact, the knowledge they gained 
there you could not give them at all. By all means dismiss 
school every time a great circus and hippodrome is within reach 
of the children. The menagerie will furnish your boys and 
girls geography, natural history, and language lessons, such as 
no school on earth can give." 



SENSORY EDUCATION 455 

Kindergartners have struck the right key-note in their theory 
of sense-training, but many kindergartners interpret it altogether 
too narrowly. They seem to regard the "gifts" as the sole 
means of sense-training. By limiting their activities to the few 
wooden blocks they make the entire kindergarten work in many 
quarters altogether too "wooden." The whole range of work 
in the kindergarten and the primary school has been vitalized 
in other places by utilizing a multitude of objects and activities 
common to the child's every-day environment. Things in the 
home, household activities, work in the garden, street scenes, 
field, forest, mountain, and stream; the mill and the factory, as 
well as the country, must all be contributors to the wide range 
of experiences which every child should receive. 

Let us remember with Dr. Hinsdale 1 that "every sense and 
every educational agent has its own appropriate function that 
no other sense or agent can fully discharge. A man blind from 
birth may learn the whole color vocabulary, but he can have no 
conception of its meaning. The appropriate sense must always 
furnish a starting point from which the mind may work through 
the other senses in the direction of substitution. Similarly, 
language, writing, and pictures can never take the place of a 
suitable grounding in the primal realities of sense and of the 
spirit. This fact must not be obscured. No human being's 
cultivation ever began with words of wisdom. The library is a 
sealed book, save to him who already possesses the keys of knowl- 
edge. The command to keep out of the fire is significant only 
to those persons who have already learned by experience what 
the fire is. In this primal sense, therefore, the education of all 
men starts at the same place and proceeds by the same steps." 

The School of Life. — We must not assume that the child 
secures all his education within the four walls of a school-room 
and from his text-books. As set out in the introductory chap- 
ters and as emphasized in every subsequent one, the whole of 
life is education. The school should be the best interpreter of 
life and should furnish more tools than any other source for the 

1 Studies in Education, p. 31. 



456 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

work of life, yet many, if not the most important educational 
lessons must come from outside the school. The extent of the 
child's extra-school experience determines the manner in which 
he shall appreciate what we attempt to teach him. Years 
before the child knocks at the school-house door, and during his 
school age for many more days and hours than he is conning his 
lessons, he is acquiring by nature's method more and better 
than we usually teach him. In "The Barefoot Boy," Whittier 
has beautifully expressed a profound educational idea and shown 
us how independence of thought should be acquired, and that 
life is the greatest school. He praises the boy for his 

Knowledge never learned of schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the groundmole sinks his well; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood grape's clusters shine; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
Mason of his walls of clay, 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans! 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks. 

Halleck remarks that "If the child's knowledge reaches to a 
solid foundation of sense-training like this, the floods of time will 
beat in vain upon that knowledge. Other things may pass 
away, but that remains while the brain lasts." He argues at 
great length that country environment has proved most con- 
ducive to the development of great intellects. He cites in proof 
of his contention the names of Shakespeare, Milton, Cromwell, 



SENSORY EDUCATION 457 

Addison, Bunyan, Dryden, Johnson, Byron, Longfellow, and 
many others who were illustrious and who were profoundly 
influenced by rural environment. He concludes his array of 
facts with the following statement: "A study of the early history 
of these eminent men has shown that the majority of them had 
their sensory brain tracts developed to a considerable degree 
by the incomparable stimuli of the country. Since there is 
more room for exercise in the country, more green fields in which 
"to romp and play, more groves and forests in which to wander, 
the motor tracts are likely to receive better training in such 
tempting environment. Again, we notice that nearly all these 
men travelled either in their own land or abroad. This is what 
we might have expected, since a study of the nervous system, 
and especially of the laws of attention, has shown that unvarying 
stimuli gradually elicit less and less attention, although they 
may be of the very finest sort. A change in this environment 
is occasionally necessary to awaken us thoroughly and to make 
us men of action." 1 Country environment is undoubtedly 
conducive to the child's best mental development, first, because 
it furnishes stimuli which are simple and comprehensible at 
that stage of development; second, because there is also greater 
opportunity for freedom, thus allowing the child to follow lines 
of interest; and, third, because his growth is not forced. The 
city is too complex, too intricate, and too much like a hot-house. 

Training in Observation: Meaning. — Before discussing meth- 
ods of training in observation it will be necessary to indicate 
the meaning of the expression "training in observation." Most 
writers employ the phrase "training the observation" as if there 
were a general power or faculty called the observation. It has 
been considered as if it were co-ordinate with memory, imagina- 
tion, etc. (Even these we no longer regard as general -faculties 
but as the sum of powers manifested in particular directions.) 

But observation is not co-ordinate with these, for it is not a 
faculty but a process, involving several faculties. To observe 
means primarily to perceive. Now, perception means more 

1 Education of the Central Nervous System, p. 92. 



458 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

than merely receiving physical impressions of light, sound, 
pressure, etc. It means attentively fixing the mind upon some 
object and giving it careful mental scrutiny. Perception is a 
mental act involving many of the so-called higher powers of the 
mind. Every perception includes comparison, discrimination, 
and judgment in some degree. It involves, in a rudimentary 
way at least, all the highest phases of mentality. One of the 
greatest mistakes in psychology has been in regarding each 
power of the mind as if it were independent. Every mental 
product higher than an undifferentiated and unlocalized sensa- 
tion has involved in its formation to some extent the use of all 
the elements of the higher powers. To form even the simplest 
percept there are necessitated acts of memory, imagination, 
comparison, discrimination, and judgment. Perception being a 
mental act does not end with the formation of a retinal image, 
the vibration of the Cortian fibres of the ear, or the excitation of 
the Pacinian corpuscles of the skin. Perception as a process 
means the interpretation of elements gained through sensations. 
It means that sensations are viewed in the light of past experi- 
ences and evaluated in terms of the resultants as then cognized 
by the mind. In perception they are recognized in their relation 
to other mental products then in the focus of consciousness or 
immediately called into the focus through associative laws. 
Thus every perception is an acquired perception. 

Observation and Apperception. — Observation means fixing the 
mind upon an object and attentively viewing it. Only by vol- 
untarily focusing the attention and bringing to bear all one's 
past related experience can one really observe. In a scientific 
observation often special conditions must be created under 
which a particular feature may be viewed, or special apparatus 
may be necessary in order to make the observation of value. 
In order to have the observation of any object full of meaning 
there is then presupposed a rich fund of experience of an allied 
nature. Otherwise the perception is devoid of content. Dr. 
W. T. Harris says: "It is not perception pure and simple that 
makes observation, but it is rather what is called apperception 



SENSORY EDUCATION 459 

(the use of the stored-up results of the aggregate perception of 
the race) that gives us power to see new objects and explain fa- 
miliar objects." x Not all perceptions are correct, even if careful 
attention has been given to them. The senses do not deceive 
us, but our interpretations may be erroneous. We view all 
phenomena with glasses colored by all our previous experiences. 
Our world is what past experience makes it. Because of faulty 
observations which are assumed to be correct, oftentimes exceed- 
ingly erroneous judgments are perpetuated, through experiences 
of individuals not being accurate enough to detect the errors. 
Dr. Whewell writes that "A vague and loose mode of looking 
at facts very easily observable left men for a long time under 
the belief that a body, ten times as heavy as another, falls ten 
times as fast; that objects immersed in water are always magni- 
fied, without regard to the form of the surface ; that the magnet 
exerts an irresistible force; that the crystal is always associated 
with ice; and the like." 2 

Observation and Attention. — Effective observation presupposes 
concentration of effort. But in attempting to teach pupils to 
observe, teachers frequently proceed exactly counter to the psy- 
chological laws governing the processes. They urge children 
to "notice everything about them on their way to school," they 
impress upon them the idea that they ought to " know everything 
that is going on about them," that they must "keep their eyes 
and ears open to everything," etc. Now, good observation 
means careful observation, seeing with reflection, dipping be- 
neath the surface and not skimming it. It means concentration 
of attention upon the thing to be observed. Careful attention 
to a given object necessitates inattention to all other things. 
In a part of school work pupils are taught to be inattentive to 
objects which should not concern them in order to attend prop- 
erly to things that rightfully should occupy their attention. We 
wish them to attend to their arithmetic, their reading, or their 
spelling and to ignore the classes that are reciting in the same 

1 Preface to E. G. Howe's Advanced Elementary Science. 

2 Whewell, Novum Organum Renovatum, p. 6r. 



460 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

room, to ignore the boys that are walking about, the singing of 
the birds, the rattle of the street-cars, the bright sunshine, and 
the marbles in their pockets. We wish the pupil, for the time 
being, to be entirely absorbed in one thing. That is good 
training in observation, but few teachers would call such occu- 
pation an observation lesson. They think of observation les- 
sons only in connection with flowers, trees, animals, birds' nests, 
and other material realities. The usual directions for observing 
would lead to dissipation of attention — "scatteration" — rather 
than concentration. 

Institute conductors used to talk much about training the 
observation. Frequently they asked such questions as "How 
many upper teeth has a cow ? On which side of the cow's horns 
are the ears? When a cow lies down does she get down with 
her fore feet or hind feet first?" The same question was asked 
about the horse. "How many steps in the stairs coming into 
the building?" In country institutes the teachers could seldom 
answer the questions concerning the farm animals and after the 
conductor discoursed learnedly (at least at great length) upon 
training the observation and the teachers' poorly developed 
powers of observation, the teachers, who had lived all their lives 
among farm scenes, felt much chagrined and very green. Had 
some of the institute members politely requested the conductor 
to describe the lining of his coat or his hat, to tell the number 
of buttons on his coat, the colors of his neck-tie, the length of 
his shoes, the number of eyelets in his shoes, whether his shoe 
tips were plain or foxed, the number of windows in his house, 
etc., it would then have been a time for exultation on the part 
of the rustics and of chagrin on the part of the professor. 

Effects Special, Rather than General.— Training in observa- 
tion is special in its effects rather than general. It has been 
currently taught that training to observe in one direction or in 
one field will make one a more skilled observer in all others, but 
this view is coming to be discredited. Training in observing 
zoological specimens, for example, will not give increased skill 
in observing music or spring fashions. If you were to meet two 



SENSORY EDUCATION 461 

acquaintances on the street, the one a skilled botanist and the 
other an uneducated person, the latter would be more apt to see 
you than your biological friend. Now, it must be conceded 
that the biologist is, in general, the more skilled observer, 
although the unlettered person does just what some pedagogues 
advise for the cultivation of the powers of observation, i. e., he 
sees everything about him. But in reality he sees nothing, that 
is, he sees nothing well. Seeing, as explained above, is a mental 
act and is not true seeing at all when the act ends with the iden- 
tification of a retinal image. Dr. Harris says that "The acute 
seeing of the hawk or greyhound does not lead to a scientific 
knowledge, and persons with excellent seeing and hearing 
capacity in general, but without scientific training, are always 
poor observers. More than this, an education in science, 
although it fits a person to observe in the line of his own specialty, 
does not fit him to observe in the line of another science which 
he has not investigated. On the contrary, the training in one 
particular line rather tends to dull the general power of observa- 
tion in other provinces of facts. The archaeologist Winckelmann 
. . . could recognize a work of art by a small fragment of it, but 
it does not follow that he could observe a fish's scale and recog- 
nize the fish to which it belonged. On the other hand, Agassiz 
could recognize a fish from one of its scales, but could not, like 
Winckelmann, recognize a work of art from one of its fragments." 1 

Methods of Training in Observation. — From what has been 
said above, it will be seen that no special means for training are 
necessary. There is no class of objects nor group of subjects 
which form a monopoly for the training in observation. It is 
very evident that if we wish to become good observers in any 
direction we must observe much and carefully in that direction. 
We must "store" in the mind a vast fund of information which 
will form an "apperception mass" in the light of which the new 
material is to be observed. 

All exercises or occupations that require close attention, care- 
ful discrimination of small differences, exhaustive comparison 

1 Preface to E. G. Howe's Advanced Elementary Science. 



462 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of factors, and identification of similarities contribute to the 
general qualities of good observation. Though the training in 
observation is special, yet the habits and tendencies of mind 
engendered by accurate observation in a given field, will un- 
doubtedly contribute to the possibility of better observation in 
other lines. However, if one becomes proficient in one line it 
is no guaranty that he will observe everything in every other 
line entirely unrelated. It merely means that he may if he 
becomes interested in that direction and sets about to accumu- 
late exhaustive acquaintanceship in that direction. It also 
follows that whatever exercise is attempted the complete and 
undivided attention should be given to it. An attempt should 
be made to marshal quickly and carefully all the related experi- 
ences that will enable one to obtain a clearer understanding of 
the object in hand. 

Pupils need careful training in observing in each branch of 
study with which they deal. Geography and natural science 
have usually been thought of as affording special training in 
observation. Because they reveal the world of objects which 
have hitherto been unseen by children and thus enlarge their 
horizon they are very important and perhaps seem to have 
contributed exceptionally to the powers of observation. They 
undoubtedly have contributed to the range of the child's obser- 
vation, but they have not contributed any more to the strength 
of attention nor to fineness of discrimination than Latin or any 
other foreign language would have done. The study of history 
may also contribute very largely to the power of discernment 
of fine differences of opinion. If studied comparatively, as it 
should be, it induces careful discrimination among facts. Geome- 
try aids in visual discrimination, while all mathematics increases 
the discrimination among logical processes. The reading les- 
sons demand careful attention to certain details and the detection 
of fine shades of differences. There is necessity for discrimina- 
tion of letters and words, of various tones and modulations of 
the voice and the exact positions of the vocal organs in producing 
them. Then there are fine shades of meaning that require close 



SENSORY EDUCATION 463 

attention and a careful weighing of factors in order that they 
may be determined with exactness. 

Thus we see that no subject can be shown to monopolize the 
opportunities for training in observation, but that any and all 
may contribute in special directions. Moreover, since all train- 
ing is special it follows that in order to become an "all-round" 
observer, the training must be so comprehensive as to create a 
many-sided interest and to afford exercise in observation in 
many of the fields of human learning. It should be conceded 
probably that in early childhood when the child is in the presen- 
tative stage material things should be sought which offer the 
child tangible data for comparison. But it is a false doctrine 
of development which would maintain that sense-perceptions 
should constitute the sole psychic experiences of the • child. 
Because -the sensory centres are the best developed it does not 
follow that no abstract processes enter into the mental life. 
Early in life generic images or recepts form an important medium 
for thought. A stage higher and we have thinking by means of 
finer instruments — words ; and at last conceptual thinking, car- 
ried on in so purely an abstract way that almost all traceable 
evidence of the symbols disappears beneath the threshold of 
consciousness. The child, therefore, needs for his proper 
development to be early exercised with things appealing to sense 
perception, and also to be trained to compare sense images with 
revived images. Not only should he compare perceptions and 
images, but also the recepts or generic images, which are per- 
fectly familiar, and his concepts should be continually compared 
with each other. Now in this last process we have reasoning. 
Those who advocate excluding from the first school years all 
work demanding reasoning do not understand psychology. 
There are all degrees of reasoning from the simplest inferences 
of the dog (or of other lower animals) up to the complex abstrac- 
tions evolved by a Kant or a Newton. Providing that the 
concepts with which the child deals are not too complex in their 
origin for him to grasp their significance the child will in no 
wise be injured by higher mental processes. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
NATURE OF IMAGINATION 

Popular Meaning. — In popular parlance the term imagination 
is applied exclusively to those products of fancy akin to the air- 
castles of day-dreams and to certain illusions caused through 
fright or great exaltation of mind. Imaginative ideas are re- 
garded by the unlettered as mere figments of the mind not corre- 
sponding to any existing or possible realities. By others the 
imagination is considered as dealing solely with the rearrange- 
ment of memory ideas, combining them into new, but as yet 
unexperienced, products. The loose definition " Memory is that 
faculty which represents things as they were, but imagination 
represents things as they might be" has dominated the thought 
of those untrained in psychology. Even many of the psycholo- 
gists have dealt with the subject in the same very loose way. 
Teachers ask pupils to take imaginary journeys to distant lands 
to see the manifold things which a traveller to that country would 
be apt to see. They say they are training the imagination by 
this means. When questioned they reveal that they regard the 
journey as imaginative, probably because of annihilating so 
completely space and time and because so Jules Verne-like all 
natural laws are disregarded in the imaginary flight. 

Again, teachers believe they are encouraging the imagination 
in the study of literature when they cause pupils to follow in 
thought some extravagant play of fancy or when they allow them 
to let their thoughts go unrestricted in depicting chaotic, im- 
possible, and often inconsistent and senseless trains of ideas. 
The training of the imagination in each case is assumed to come 
through the transcendence of reality and through the wild play 
of ideas. As will be shown later, whatever training of the 

464 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 465 

imagination there may be in the "imaginary journeys" and the 
fairy tales comes from the vivid and accurate repicturing of 
things formerly actually perceived. 

Scientific View. — A good many psychologists, while not un- 
mindful that imagination is limited to the elements that have 
been experienced through sense-perception, still regard the 
imagination as exclusively a combinative power. While it is 
a combinative power, the essence of the faculty is its character- 
istic reproductive function. While the imagination may concern 
itself with the creation of air castles, its most fundamental form 
is the repicturing of objects which have actually been perceived 
through sense-perceptions. While the imagination may be of a 
type called creative the most elementary type is the reproductive 
imagination. The creative type is dependent upon the repro- 
ductive type and the difference between the two is but one of 
degree and does not involve fundamentally different psychical 
processes. 

A sensation may be denned as the simplest, undifferentiated, 
intellectual process or product arising from the stimulation of a 
sensory nerve. In looking at a pencil you get a sensation of 
light, in touching it a sensation of contact, in lifting it a sensation 
of weight, and if you drop it on the floor a sensation of sound is 
aroused; perhaps you also receive a sensation of smell, and 
should you place it in the mouth you would receive a sensation 
of taste. Now, provided you are able to say that the sensations 
of light, sound, taste, smell, or weight come from some object 
you know and whose position you know with reference to your- 
self, you have a more complex psychical state than a sensation; 
you have a percept. That is, just as soon as it becomes differen- 
tiated from other sensations of the same modality you have some 
definite knowledge regarding the mental state and its cause. 
So we may define perception as the process of localizing sensa- 
tions and referring them to some external cause. And similarly 
a percept is the complex product arising from the localizing of 
sensations and referring them to an external cause. 

While the pencil was present to any of the senses the psychical 



466 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

product was termed a percept. Look away from the pencil 
and you now have a picture of it. See if you can represent the 
sound of it as it fell to the floor; the weight of it as it lay in the 
hand; or the smell and taste of the cedar wood. See if you can 
recall definitely the appearance of a silver dollar. See if you 
can hear its ring as it is dropped on the table. These revived 
pictures of the sight, sound, taste, weight, etc., are not percepts, 
because the objects are not present to any of the senses. They 
are copies of the percepts; fainter and not so clear and vivid as 
the percepts. They are termed images. Hence the definition: 
Images are copies of percepts. x\nd the process of imagination 
should then be defined as follows : Imagination is the process of 
forming images. Or, it is the process of reviving percepts in 
the form of images. Titchener says: "Imagination is imaging. 
And imaging a thing is thinking of it in kind: a tree is imaged 
by a visual idea, a piano note by an idea of hearing, running to 
catch a train by a tactual idea: the ideas are the same in kind 
as the perceptions which they represent. In this sense, a mind 
is more or less 'imaginative' according as it is better or worse 
constituted to think of things in kind: and the primitive mind — 
the mind whose ideas are photographic copies of perceptions — is 
the most imaginative of all." * And again he says: "The ideas 
of the primitive mind are, as it were, photographic copies, life 
likenesses, of the perceptions which go before them. Thus the 
idea of a landscape would be in part a picture-idea, the look of 
stream and hills and trees; in part a sound-idea, the idea of 
splashing water and rustling boughs; in part a tactual idea, the 
'feel' of springing grass and moving wind; in part a smell-idea, 
a remembered freshness and fragrance of air and flowers. The 
life-likeness is, of course, never perfect; the idea is weaker, 
passes by more quickly, and is more sketchy, than the perception 
that corresponds to it: but the qualities of the perception are 
found again in the [imaged] idea." 2 

Illustrations. — Many persons think they imagine clearly, 
when, in fact, their imagery is very dull, or possibly lacking. 

1 Primer of Psychology, p. 201. 2 Op. cit., p. 122. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 



467 



Try to picture clearly through visual imagery your home when 
away from it; the school-house and the church you attended 
as a child. See if you can visualize your mother, your father, 
a distant friend. Which is clearer, the image of the persons as 
you have actually seen them or the image of some photograph 
of them? Why? The following is a capital test of visual 
imagery: Imagine a three-inch cube. Paint it blue. Imagine 
it cut into inch-cubes. How many cuts were necessary ? How 
many cubes? How many cubes have no paint? How many 
have paint on one side only? How many have paint on two 





Fig. 33. — Tests for visual imagery. 



sides only ? On three sides only ? On four sides ? Draw from 
memory the picture of the print of a dog's foot as it appears in 
the snow or mud. Draw from memory a hen's track. Draw 
from memory your watch face. Look for a moment at some 
unfamiliar wall-paper or decoration and then turn away and 
see if you can describe it or draw it. Look for a moment at the 
accompanying irregular figure B, and then turn away and 
attempt to draw it. 

Each of the two figures, A and B, has ten lines, but A can be 
drawn much easier than B because it can be analyzed and 
remembered. B must be imagined in order to be reproduced 
quickly. 

Try to revive the exact sound of a friend's voice; the sound 
of the old school-bell; the music of "America" as sung by a 



468 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

chorus, as played on a piano, on a violin, by an orchestra, or 
by a brass band. Revive the sensations produced by filing a 
saw, a step on the walk, or the splashing of water. If a product 
of imagination, each revival must be specific and concrete. It 
is not enough to know that we have heard the music, to feel that 
we could reproduce it, or to be sure that we should recognize 
it, if heard. It must be revived in consciousness so that it is a 
reproduction of what has actually been experienced in sense 
perception. To further test the power of imagery try to image 
the odor of violets, roses, onions, old books, new-mown hay, or 
a clover-field. How closely do the images approximate reality ? 
Try to imagine the taste of pickles, coffee, roast beef. Without 
looking at the hand see if you can feel a glove upon it. Think 
of an ant crawling on the back of the neck, or a fly walking over 
the face. Do the images become so real as sometimes to become 
confused with actual sensations? How would it feel to bite a 
rusty nail, to touch a snake or a sand-bur? 

The student who looks through the microscope, turns away, 
and draws accurately what he has seen must have a visual image 
in his mind of what he has seen. The more accurately he can 
represent the object, the more perfect his image. Many never 
portray well what they have seen because their imagery fades. 
They are sometimes unjustly accused of not seeing accurately. 
The child who makes an excursion to the field, forest, or quarry, 
and on returning revives pictures of what he has experienced 
is imaging, i. e., is employing the imagination. To examine a 
hydrostatic press, a battery, a Wheatstone's bridge, a clam, a 
crystal, or a fern, and then to recall exactly what has been seen 
is to imagine. To listen to a note sounded by the director's 
tuning-fork and then hold it in mind long enough to sound the 
same is to imagine. To examine the color and texture of a 
piece of cloth and then go to the store without the sample and 
match it is to hold in mind an image — to imagine. 

The musical composer must hear each note as it will sound, 
when executed. He must differentiate the various parts and 
hear each voice or each instrument as it will appear in the 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 469 

rendition. In singing it is necessary to image the sound before 
it is produced. Thus a train of imagery runs in advance of the 
actual rendition. If a discord should be imaged for an instant 
that discord would be reproduced. This is just as certain as 
that when a bicyclist thinks of an obstacle he is certain to steer 
toward it. The image is held before the mind and largely 
determines execution. The architect who plans a building must 
see every part in imagination before he constructs his drawings. 
The carpenter who builds without a definite pattern-drawing 
must see each room, each door, each stairway, each pipe and 
fixture as they will be arranged, if mistakes are to be avoided. 
Try sometime to imagine a change in the stairway of your house, 
a change in the roof, or the furnace and note how definitely it 
must all be imaged. 

Relations Between Memory and Imagination. — It will be neces- 
sary to distinguish between imagination and memory. As we 
shall more and more come to appreciate, mental life is a unity 
and not made up of entirely separate faculties or powers; hence 
memory and imagination will be found to be very closely related 
forms of mental life. We shall find, moreover, that they over- 
lap each other. In their well-marked higher stages it will not 
be difficult to distinguish the two, but in indefinite stages they 
will be found to be indistinguishable. Distinguishing between 
memory and imagination, between sensation and perception, 
between intellect and will are much like making exacting dis- 
tinctions between plants and animals. It is perfectly easy to 
determine to which kingdoms trees and horses belong, but when 
we come to sponges and the protozoans the task is more difficult 
and often even baffling. No one can say that a given sensation 
has no element of perception in it, nor in a given percept can 
one entirely separate the perceptional element from the sensa- 
tional. The difference between memory and imagination can 
perhaps be better felt than expressed. In order to understand 
the differences each individual must experience them for him- 
self. Certain hints may be given, however, to enable the learner 
to identify the states in his own consciousness. 



47o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

We can image only individual ideas; not concepts. These 
latter can be remembered. Again, memory deals with the past 
only. Imagination deals with the past, present, or future. One 
may remember his yesterday's dinner. He may also imagine 
it. One may imagine the morrow's dinner, but he cannot 
remember it. He has not experienced it and cannot therefore 
recall it. Imagination is simply a special kind of recall — in the 
form of images. As above illustrated, if you can recall or 
produce in mind an idea of an object so definitely and vividly 
that it seems almost as if the object were present, then you have 
an image. If it is dim and hazy and indefinite you have a 
memory. 

Dream Images and Illusions. — The best examples of imagery 
come to us in dreams. We see things, hear things, touch things, 
and even taste and smell things in such a concrete and vivid way 
that they seem real. For the time they are just as vivid as the 
actual experiences would be. Temporarily we are deceived 
into believing them real. Sometimes similar phenomena occur 
in normal waking life. We imagine that we see things, or hear 
sounds, such as voices, bells, or the clock-tick. We imagine 
that we feel things when there is no stimulation of the sense 
organs. Usually there may be' a suggestive factor in some actual 
sensations, but the images that arise are very much stronger 
than the stimulation would warrant. Children, savages, .and 
superstitious people are liable to have hallucinations upon the 
suggestion of the slightest stimuli. Darkness and lonesome 
places heighten the suggestibility. As De Quincey says: "Many 
children have a power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness 
all sorts of phantoms." 

Insanity is little else than a species of disordered imagination. 
The abnormal mind, possibly through suggestion, sees visions, 
hears voices, and feels touches, which in a sane condition would 
not be experienced. The hallucination world in which the poor 
diseased mind lives is just as real to the one afflicted as the world 
of those unchanged by mental aberration. The self which the 
unfortunate peasant girl lives when her diseased brain deludes 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 471 

her into believing herself Queen Victoria is no more a counterfeit 
and a pretence to her than the self we deal in when we go about 
thinking of our own supposed importance, or even when we deal 
in a more modest type of self. No two in normal life interpret 
the external signs of reality in the same way. The child obtains 
the same retinal pictures of the printed page or the written tele- 
gram as you and I do: but how different our interpretations! 
The telegram is a bit of bright yellow to be admired by the child 
or the savage. To you or me it may mean supreme joy or the 
depths of disconsolation and hopeless melancholy. 

Imaging and Thinking. — One of the differences between mem- 
ory and imagination is that concepts may be remembered but 
not imaged. We retain the concept and all the individual 
notions that it involves, but we cannot picture it as an image. 
If we image an ideal representation it is particular and not 
general. It is a generic image and not a concept. Some may 
experience difficulty in apprehending the distinction and there- 
fore it will be considered in some detail. It may be asked in 
what form do we recall concepts and also how it is possible to 
think of anything without thinking of it in terms of images? 
But if one reflects, he will readily see that when he utters words 
or hears them in continuous discourse even though the words 
refer to some object of sense no image of it necessarily comes into 
consciousness. The possibility of halting and calling up the 
images which have been necessary in forming the concept is not 
denied. But all the particular ideas which have entered into 
the coalesced product seem to remain beneath the threshold of 
consciousness. The words representing ideas thoroughly under- 
stood are accepted by the mind as signs, and because of the "at- 
home-ness" of feeling they are passed by without calling up their 
detailed accompaniments. 

The lower animals, undoubtedly, do all their thinking in 
sensory images or at best in generic images. These generic 
images may be likened to a composite photograph. Such a 
general notion is in the form of a sensory image which embodies 
the elements of each of the individuals which have appeared to 



472 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

be most prominent. They are not necessarily the features most 
essential in scientific classification. Those would be the ones 
included in a clarified concept. The generic image, though an 
ideal representation, is a copy of a combination of percepts and 
is experienced in terms of some of the senses. The general 
notion never appears in consciousness in this form. More- 
over, many of the revivals of individual notions never rise to the 
dignity of a clear image. They are vague, shadowy, and hazy. 
If the perceptions have been clear and vivid, revivals have been 
made possible, but it is not necessary that the image be brought 
into the focus of consciousness. What has been thoroughly 
cognized we readily recognize by the slightest symbol, just as when 
fully acquainted with a person the merest glance of a portion 
of the countenance, some garment, the sound of the voice, or the 
walk are sufficient to make us say mentally, "Yes, I recognize, 
I apprehend completely." Now we do not think of all the 
characteristics one by one, and we do not think of the person in 
all his varying moods, nor under all the circumstances in which 
we have seen him. These we feel confident of being able to 
picture if necessary. But there is an " at-home-ness " in the 
mental mood, which removes the necessity for further detailed 
picturing. This is a case of what is termed by Stout "implicit 
apprehension" of the meaning of words. He says that "The 
mental state which we call understanding the meaning of a word 
need not involve any distinction of the multiplicity of parts 
belonging to the object signified by it. To bring this multiplic- 
ity before consciousness in its fulness and particularity would 
involve the imaging of objects with their sensory qualities, visual, 
auditory, tactual, etc. But it has often been pointed out that in 
ordinary discourse the understanding of the import of a word is 
something quite distinct from having a mental image suggested 
by the word." 1 And in the same connection he writes: "It is 
certainly possible to think of a whole in its unity and dis- 
tinctness without discerning all or even any of its component 
details." 

1 Analytic Psychology, I, p. 79. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 473 

The same facts were long ago pointed out by Burke, who 
erroneously concluded that there arises in the mind no idea of 
the things represented by the words — merely sounds "without 
any annexed notions." He says further: "Nobody, I believe, 
immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty, or honor, 
conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action 
and thinking ... for which these words are substituted. . . . 
I am of the opinion that the most general effect, even of these 
words, does not arise from their forming pictures of the several 
things they would represent in the imagination; because, on a 
very diligent examination of my own mind, and getting others 
to consider theirs, I do not find that once in twenty times any 
such picture is formed, and, when it is, there is most commonly 
a particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. . . . 
Indeed, it is impossible, in the rapidity and quick succession of 
words in conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the 
word and of the thing represented." * 

To those who have been used to believing that all their think- 
ing is done in terms of sensory imagery, the question arises as 
to the form in which this imageless thought is carried on. The 
question is a very pertinent one. Each one can perhaps best 
feel the answer for himself. The process involved almost eludes 
description. But one who will carefully and persistently try 
to catch himself in the act of apprehending terms which are 
rapidly passed over will be satisfied that imageless apprehension 
is not impossible. Burke concluded that much of our thinking 
' is imageless, but further erroneously concluded that we have no 
"notion" in our minds of the objects signified by the words. 
Such words are, he said, mere sounds. To this it cannot be 
agreed. The word is the sign by which we recognize that we 
have a background of knowledge which it is not necessary to call 
up in form of an image but which may be so called up at will. 
Nor is it necessary to call up all images and individual notions 
that have been involved in forming the concept. We must be 
able to distinguish a given notion from other objects or notions, 

1 Quoted by Stout, op. cit., I, p. 81. 



474 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and, as Stout says, this power of distinguishing the appre- 
hended object from other objects "is all that is necessarily 
implied in the imageless apprehension, which is sufficient to 
constitute the psychical state called understanding the meaning 
of a word." x 

Lotze says: "When we have listened to a poem recited, to a 
melody sung, and forget the words and the tones, while yet all 
that was in them lives on in an abiding mood of our soul; when 
we first send our glance over the scattered details of a landscape, 
and then, after the definite outlines have long disappeared from 
our memory, still preserve an indelible impression, we make 
combination and fusion of the myriads of details into the whole 
of supersensible intuition; which we but reluctantly again 
analyze into its constituent parts in order to communicate it to 
others." 2 

The latest and best discussion of this phase of the subject is 
by Betts, who derives his conclusions from abundant experi- 
mental evidence rather than from a priori reasoning. 3 He 
believes that the amount of definite imagery in ordinary mental 
processes has been entirely overestimated. He rightly intimates 
that we need more investigation of spontaneous imagery. Most 
investigations of imagination have dealt with the voluntary types. 
Some of the conclusions can be given best in Betts's own words: 
"It is evident that most persons can command a far wider range 
and greater profusion of imagery than they normally employ. 
. . . The most efficient and successful thinking, at least of a logi- 
cal and abstract nature, is with most persons accompanied by the 
least imagery. Thinking can and does go on without the inter- 
vention of imagery, the mental content being made up of feelings 
of meaning, relation, intention, effort, identity, interest, pleasure, 
displeasure, etc. Imagery may and often does serve as a 
familiar background for the meaning with which we are dealing, 



1 Op. cit., I, p. 84. 

2 Lotze's Microcosmus, English translation, I, p. 635. 

3 "The Distribution and Functions of Mental Imagery," Columbia Uni- 
versity Contributions to Education, No. 26. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 475 

but it cannot be said to be essential to meaning, except to the 
extent that meaning may inhere in a given percept as such, e. g., 
the meaning of a beautiful sunset is chiefly this same beautiful 
sunset. . . . Very much of memory is accomplished without the 
use of imagery, and much of the imagery which accompanies 
memory is of no advantage to it. The 'memory image,' used as 
a general term to cover all memory stuff is a fiction." l 

Nervous Processes and Imagination. — It has been shown that 
images may be so vividly revived or produced as to create illu- 
sions. We are sometimes deceived into believing that such ex- 
periences are perceptions of the objective realities. So strongly 
do the mental states resemble the perceptions of the same 
thing that we may experience fatigue from their continuance. 
This occurs in dreams where we believe that we are actively 
exerting ourselves; as in running, lifting, resisting, and the like. 
Sometimes we awaken completely exhausted by the apparent 
activity, when in actuality we have not stirred. We may produce 
the illusions of motor activity and its attendant fatigue in the 
classical illustration of crooking the finger as if to fire a pistol, 
while in reality not moving a muscle. Now, the explanation of 
all this is that it is the process of innervation that exhausts, not 
the actual muscular labor. As a matter of fact, in work it is 
not the muscle which becomes fatigued but the brain centre 
controlling it. In hypnotism a patient is made to believe, for 
example, that he has been burned. He feels the pain exactly 
as if it were real. More wonderful still the blister sometimes 
actually forms. This means that centres which control the blood 
supply have become so thoroughly affected as to change the 
amount of nutrition to that part. The explanation why no blood 
follows the thrust of a hat pin through the cheek or the hand in 
certain hypnotic performances is also not far to seek. All this 
indicates that the same processes which are excited peripherally, 
as the seeing, hearing, burning, etc., in normal perception, are 
in imagination set up internally. There can be no doubt that 

1 The reader should also consult Woodworth, "Imageless Thought," Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, vol. III. 



476 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

in imagination exactly the same sort of neural transformations 
occur as in sensation. The only difference is in their origin. 
There is nothing strange about all this if we recall what was said 
in connection with habit, association, and memory. Any change 
once initiated in the nervous system tends to persist and on the 
recurrence of adequate stimuli tends to function in precisely 
the same way as in the original stimulation. The doctrine of 
association has sufficiently demonstrated that adequate stimuli 
may come from a train of thought to set up other trains of thought. 
Every one, even untrained in psycho-physics, will tell you that 
one idea suggests another. Now why may not one functional 
brain process stimulate another functional brain process ? This 
must be accepted if we acknowledge the facts of the physiologi- 
cal basis of association and the doctrine of psycho-physical 
parallelism. 

The effect upon the nervous system of reproducing ideas in 
imagination is of the same kind as in perception with the object 
acting as a stimulus, the only difference being that in normal 
life a more intense activity is usually caused by perception than 
by an imagination of the same object. According to Bain, in 
imagination "the renewed feeling [state] occupies the very same 
parts, and in the same manner, as the original feeling, and no 
other parts nor in any other assignable manner." 1 Ribot, in 
commenting upon this, writes: "To give a striking example: 
experiment shows that the persistent idea of a brilliant color 
fatigues the optic nerve. We know that the perception of a 
colored object is often followed by a consecutive sensation which 
shows us the object with the same outline, but in a comple- 
mentary color. It may be the same in the memory. It leaves, 
although with less intensity, a consecutive image. If with closed 
eyes we keep before the imagination a bright-colored figure for a 
long time, and then suddenly open the eyes upon a white surface, 
we may see for an instant the imaginary object with a comple- 
mentary color. This fact, noted by Wundt, from whom we 
borrow it, proves that the nervous process is the same in both 

1 The Senses and the Intellect* p. 358. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 477 

cases — in perception and in remembrance." * While James 
believes that cases are rarities in which the sense organ is affected 
through the imagination, yet he admits that the imagination- 
process can pass over into the sensation-process and that the 
former differs from the latter by its intensity rather than by the 
regions affected. 

" Jendrassik and Krafft-Ebing obtained marks like burns on 
their subjects by means of suggestion. If some object, such as 
a match-box, a pair of scissors, a snuff-box, a linen-stamp, etc., 
was pressed upon the skin, and the subject was at the same time 
told that the skin was being burned, a blister in the form of the 
object resulted. The marks remained a long time visible. . . . 
Burns caused by suggestion have often been observed in the 
Salpetriere." Bleeding of the nose and of the skin was also 
caused by suggestion. "When the skin had been rubbed with a 
blunt instrument in order to give point to the suggestion, bleed- 
ing of the skin is said to have appeared at command, the traces 
of which were visible three months later." Delboeuf and others 
experimented in producing burns. In addition he made one of 
the wounds painless by suggestion. "It was observed in this 
case that the painless wound showed much greater tendency to 
heal, and, in particular, that the inflammation showed no 
tendency to spread." Mantegazza claims that he has been able 
to "induce local reddening of the skin simply by thinking 
intently of the spot." 2 "Charming" away warts and other 
affections then seem entirely possible under extreme conditions. 
It is not the hocus-pocus of tying up nine pebbles, placing them in 
a linen sack, swinging the sack five times to the left, and then 
four times to the right, around the head, and finally throwing the 
sack on a thorn bush that takes away the wart. But it is entirely 
possible that the thought concentrated upon the warty region 
may have affected the blood supply to that part and thus reduced 
the wart. 

Children's Imagination. — Children are very imaginative. 
They live in a world of imagery and fancy. In the early period 

1 Diseases of Memory, p. 20. 2 Moll, Hypnotism, pp. 131, 132, 134, 306. 



478 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of their lives their thinking is carried on by means of images 
as instruments of thought. This is especially true of the pre- 
linguistic age. With the acquisition of speech the processes of 
generalized or conceptual thinking, previously effected through 
generic images, are now accomplished through the instrumental- 
ity of words and abstract symbols. But throughout childhood, 
while sense-perceptions are relatively stronger than any other 
process, all forms of sense-imagery are very vivid. So vivid 
are the child's imaginations, and so little reflective is he, that 
illusions are easily created. The child is extremely suggestible, 
i. e., he easily seizes upon the merest sign and through his vivid 
imagery builds up creations which would not appear to the more 
mature. Careful studies have been made on the suggestibility 
of children. It has been found that children can be caused to 
imagine that they see things, hear things, smell, taste, and touch 
things that have no objective existence. The word or some 
sign is sufficient to arouse the brain centre controlling the par- 
ticular function. 1 The degree of suggestibility is greatest in 
the first grade and decreases with age. That is, imaginative 
products are much more often mistaken for real perceptions 
in early childhood than in later life. 

The vividness of visual imagery decreases after early child- 
hood is past up to the age of maturity. To quote Sir Francis 
Galton: "The power of visualizing is higher in the female sex 
than in the male, and is somewhat, but not much, higher in 
public-school boys than in men. After maturity is reached the 
further advance of age does not seem to dull the faculty, but rather 
the reverse, judging from numerous statements to that effect; 
but advancing years are sometimes accompanied by a growing 
habit of hard abstract thinking, and in these cases — not uncom- 
mon among those whom I have questioned — the faculty un- 
doubtedly becomes impaired. There is reason to believe that 
it is very high in very young children, who seem to spend years 
of difficulty in distinguishing between the subjective and objec- 
tive world. Language and book-learning certainly tend to 

1 Small, " Suggestibility of Children," Pedagogical Seminary, 4 : 176-220. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 479 

dull it." x There is reason to believe that the power of visual 
imagery becomes less vivid with advancing years and growing 
intellectuality because of disuse of that particular kind of thought- 
instrument. Better modes of thinking are acquired and the 
slow, cumbersome, old process is short-circuited. We have no 
statistics to show that images derived through the other senses 
become less distinct with advancing years. But probably a 
similar change occurs in hearing. Auditory images become less 
necessary as conveyancers of thought with progress in language 
and abstract thinking. 

This child-world is not a product of creative imagination, but 
one of reproductive imagination. Through imitation the child 
reproduces the world which he sees about him. His cosmos is 
a reflection of the experiences he has been able to drink in. I 
have no evidence that there are great flights of fancy in which 
unexperienced scenes and situations are marshalled together. 
The child plays with dolls and although these, often crude objects, 
are imaginatively made instinct with life, yet the child does with 
them and has them do only what she has seen her mother or the 
nurse do with the baby. The little mischiefs play school and 
in so doing impersonate different individuals. One assumes the 
role of teacher while the others are pupils. The play-pupils 
(imitatively) sit obedient to the dictates of the teacher with now 
and then an (imitative) infraction of the rules. They are pun- 
ished in an approved (imitative) fashion, i. e., in the fashion set 
by the real teacher of their acquaintance. They seldom assume 
roles not imitative. Sully says that the "impulse to invent 
imaginary surroundings" is very common. In fact, he de- 
nominates all plays which are dominated by the imagination as 
creative or inventive. Through my own personal observations 
I am not able to confirm this position. Moreover, I have failed 
to find in all of Sully's or Baldwin's examples of imagination any 
that give evidence of much, if any, inventiveness on the part of 
the children. In childish lies we have some invention for the 
purpose of avoiding consequences, but during play the child is 

1 Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 99. 



480 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

attempting to mirror truthfully the world as he understands it. 
To be sure, the child builds perfect products from the crudest 
materials; a stick or a chair or his own body seem equally well 
adapted to be transformed into a dashing steed. There are no 
obstacles between the raw material and the flawless product. 
His inventive powers are little taxed in the transformation. He 
pictures a desired end and presto! it is secured. 

In playing with her dolls the little girl, though living a life 
which she knows is make-believe, is a faithful imitator of the 
mother or nurse. A little mother of four summers was heard 
to say: "Oh mercy! baby must have a clean dress on; but all 
are in the wash. Does you want your cloak on, too?" When 
a child harnesses the chairs, calls them horses, and makes him- 
self the driver, he imitates very closely the actions of the real 
driver, whom he has seen. A child who has never seen eques- 
trians will never ride an imaginary broomstick horse. A boy 
whose father had a lariat and used it in lassoing horses was 
continually seen with a noosed rope playing at the capture of 
animals. 

Because of the vivid manner in which children image things, 
a caution needs to be given against telling the child things which 
will be magnified into terrorizing objects. All stories of the 
bad man, the bogie, big bear that will catch you, wolves, tramps, 
robbers, future punishment, etc., should be scrupulously avoided. 
Many children are made timid and retiring throughout life 
because of injudicious stories of bogie-men, spooks, etc. If the 
child could understand that they are fictions he would not be 
so troubled, but imagination becomes belief and often a belief 
haunts one as a life-long spectre. In this connection proper cau- 
tion should be observed in telling children, even about such 
harmless and well-disposed genii as Kris Kringle or Santa Claus. 
The good fairies and Santa Claus should never be represented 
to be dwelling too near, as for example in the chimney or behind 
the house or under the bed. Let them be the good men, away 
off. I have seen my child G. come to me all agitated, trembling, 
and apparently in great mental agony because a servant told her 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 481 

that Santa Claus was in the kitchen chimney. She was not a 
skittish child, had never been afraid of the dark, and had never 
been frightened by being told of bogie-men and spooks. The 
child only too readily peoples with imaginary creatures all dark 
corners and the space behind and beyond things. One writer 
says: "When I was a child and we played hide and seek in the 
barn, I always felt that there must or might be behind every 
bundle of straw, and especially in the corners, something un- 
heard of lying hidden." 

Children are very animistic and often, like the savage, imagine 
inanimate nature endowed with life. The savage heard the 
voice of nature talk to him with tongues understood only by the 
primitive mind; the child recapitulating the race history under- 
stands those same voices. The poet, like the child and the sav- 
age, penetrates what is invisible to ordinary mortals, and is 
cognizant of the same unseen powers. These he discloses to us 
through his versifications. To the ordinary mind these voices 
become hushed through the complex of psychic influences 
necessary to mature existence. A careful canvass of many 
children's ideas concerning streams and bodies of water secured 
thousands of replies in the same strain as the accompanying: 
F., 12: 1 "I think of water as a person; it seems as if it could 
talk." F., 15: "The ocean seems as if it had life like a roaring 
lion." F., 13: "The ocean always seems to be planning some 
wrong." F., 5^: Was sailing a boat; the string broke and 
the boat went sailing away. She said: "Water, if you don't 
bring back that boat I'll tell mamma." Another time she was 
heard to say to the brook : " I wonder where you go to ? Do you 
ever get tired? I know I should." F.: "I used to think the 
river had life, but different from ours; it was always a puzzle 
to me." F., 17: "I used to imagine the water had life; I knew 
that it really hadn't, but I liked to think it had and that it was 
like a person." F., 18: "When a child I frequently thought 
the brook had life and was talking as it rippled over its stony 
bed." F., 30: "I am happier in the instinctive feeling that 

1 F = female. M = male. 



482 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

water has a kinship of life with me, than when I am under the 
domination of reason concerning such things." 

Jean Ingelow confirms in her own experience my investiga- 
tions. When about two or three years old "I had the habit," 
she writes, 1 "of attributing intelligence not only to all living 
creatures, the same amount and kind of intelligence that I had 
myself, but even to stones and manufactured articles. I used 
to feel how dull it must be for the pebbles in the causeway to be 
obliged to lie still and only see what was round about. When 
I walked out with a little basket for putting flowers in I used 
sometimes to pick up a pebble or two and carry them on to have 
a change; then at the farthest point of the walk turn them out, 
not doubting that they would be pleased to have a new view." 
Sully says that through imagination "the child sees what we 
regard as lifeless and soulless, as alive and conscious. Thus 
he gives not only body but soul to the wind when it whistles or 
howls at night. The most unpromising things come in for this 
warming, vitalizing touch of the child's fancy. . . . Thus one 
little fellow aged one year and eight months conceived a spe- 
cial fondness for the letter W, addressing it thus: 'Dear old 
boyW.'" 2 

Imagination and Belief. — It is perfectly possible that in the 
savage imagination may pass over into belief. Apparitions 
which arise through superstitions may be as real to him as" any 
existent realities. But he is led to the belief through supersti- 
tious faith in authority rather than from sense illusions. The 
belief causes the illusory images rather than vice versa. These 
fanciful creations then arise at the merest suggestion because 
the ideas do not antagonize the comparatively simple mental 
system. They readily accept the authority of superstition and 
personify inanimate objects, believe in incantations, sorcery, etc. 
But it is largely because of the great weight of a mass of tradi- 
tion. In the same way children who are so imaginative may 
easily accept superstitions and come even to confound fantasy 

1 "The History of Infancy," Longman'' s Magazine, Feb., 1890. 

2 Studies of Childhood, p. 30. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 483 

with reality. If children continually are told fairy stories as 
facts, and superstitions are doled out as realities, they may be 
easily led to confound fact and fiction. But if fairy stories are 
told as fairy stories and children are always dealt with honestly, 
they have little tendency to self-deception concerning the play 
of their fancy. It need not be feared that children's enjoyment 
is a whit curtailed by treating their fairy stories as fictitious 
creations. They often design the most fantastic creations and 
play the leading role in the drama, and when they notice that they 
are being watched in a quizzical way they suddenly burst out 
laughing and implore you not to observe them. You desist and 
the play is resumed. They are merely acting and they realize it 
perhaps as fully as any comedian or tragedian. Although a good 
actor works up to a great degree the mental states he assumes 
no one in impersonation ever lost his identity and did things or 
believed things out of harmony with his real self. 1 Their belief 
of the things to be imagined does not enter in as a factor. As 
Stout puts the case: "To imagine is simply to think of an object, 
without believing, disbelieving, or doubting its existence." 2 

If the creations of imagination are real to the child, why does 
he allow the same objective stimuli to suggest such kaleidoscopic 
scenes? One minute his blocks are called a house, the next a 
steam engine, again a fence, and still again in the same brief 
play period a hospital, 3 and at any moment only blocks. Why 
is the doll so neglected if it is thought to be a reality ? The real 
baby is not accorded doll-treatment. The little maid of five 
years, through a sense of responsibility in the trust confided 
to her by the care of her little baby brother, will not leave him, 
but throws her dolly to the floor at any moment and runs to play 
with something momentarily more attractive. My little girl 
of five came in one day and cried because her younger brother 
would not let her doll sleep. I said, "Can your doll hear?" 



1 Long-continued belief, even in imaginary ideas, undoubtedly greatly affects 
the individual, as will be shown in the chapter on the emotions. 

2 Analytic Psychology, II, p. 260. 

3 I witnessed such a rapid transformation just before writing this. 



484 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

"No, but I play it can," she promptly replied. It seems to me 
that her complaint was because he was disturbing the harmony 
of the imagined situation and spoiling her pleasure. In play the 
mind seeks to contemplate only that which excites pleasurable 
emotions. It rigorously rejects everything inharmonious with 
the pleasurable situations. In day-dreams we do the same 
thing. We studiously avoid harboring anything disagreeable. 
At the same time we are cognizant that the imagery is merely 
a dream. In sleep we often do the same thing. It is not 
probable that the child has a firm belief that the objects of nat- 
ure are animate. It is merely a play of the imagination which 
carries the child into a suprasensuous world and produces a 
quasi illusion which causes him to make believe that life-like 
qualities exist. It is merely a personification which in exceed- 
ingly strong imaginative natures causes the apparent likeness 
to approximate the reality experienced in the dream state. It 
may be that in children the dream state is regarded as a real 
experience, but in adults the dream state even at the time is 
frequently known to be only a dream. Of course, one can very 
easily convert the imagination into beliefs. This is the case with 
the thought of the bogie-man and many ideas that we call 
superstitions. Ghost stories readily create a firm belief in 
ghosts. Many people undoubtedly see ghosts as really as they 
see the house in which they live. 

Limitations of the Imagination. — The imagination is limited 
to the use of materials already in the mind. Sense-perception 
must furnish the elements, the raw material, out of which the 
imaginative product is produced. This is true in the case of 
the highest creative imagination, as well as in the lowest form 
of mechanical combination. It may be stated as a law that no 
product can be imagined, the elements of which have not been 
experienced in sense- perception. The congenitally blind cannot 
imagine color, nor the congenitally deaf imagine sound. Among 
the blind it has been found that those who become blind before 
the age of six or seven never dream of colors, while those de- 
prived of sight at a later age frequently have dreams in which 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 485 

color is a factor. The necessity for sense-elements out of which 
to construct the new picture is well illustrated in the case of Sir 
Walter Scott, a writer of the most vivid imagination. In a visit 
to Mr. Morritt, Scott said to his host with reference to some 
facts which he had given to Scott: " You have given me materials 
for romance: now I want a good robber's cave, and an old 
church of the right sort." "We rode out," says Mr. Morritt, 
"and he found what he wanted in the ancient slate quarries of 
Brignal and the ruined abbey of Eggleston. I observed him 
noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that 
accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his 
intended cave of Guy Denzil; and could not help saying that, 
as he was not to be on oath in his work, daisies, violets, and 
primroses would be as poetical as any of the humbler plants he 
was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; 
but I understood him when he replied, that in nature herself 
no two scenes were exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly 
what was before his eyes, would possess the same variety in his 
descriptions, and exhibit apparently an imagination as bound- 
less as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded; whereas 
whoever trusted to [constructive and not accurate, reproductive] 
imagination would soon find his own mind circumscribed, and 
contracted to a few favorite images, and the repetition of these 
would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barren- 
ness, which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands 
of any but the patient worshippers of truth." 1 

The foregoing also illustrates the fact that in the best imagina- 
tive literature, the finest descriptions contain more of truth than 
of fiction. The salient characteristics which have been selected 
for the scene characterized must be true to life. It is said that 
Scott's characters "are felt by those who are well acquainted 
with the Scottish life of the past to be so intensely natural that 
every one of them might have been a real character. And the 
same is true of the best of Dickens's and of Thackeray's imag- 
inary constructions, in which these great humorists have so 

1 Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 492. 



486 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

completely identified themselves, as it were, with the several 
types they delineated, as to make each of them speak and act 
as he (or she) would have done in actual life. It is certain, 
indeed, that most of these (as in Walter Scott's case) are devel- 
opments of actual types; while those which are purely ideal — 
the work of the creative rather than of the constructive imagina- 
tion — lack 'flesh and blood' reality." 1 Burroughs wrote of 
Tennyson: "A lady told me that she was once walking with 
him in the fields when they came to a spring that bubbled up 
through shifting sands in a very pretty manner, and Tennyson, 
in order to see exactly how the spring behaved, got down on his 
hands and knees and peered a long time into the water. The 
incident is worth repeating, as showing how intently a great 
poet studies nature." After knowing these habits of the great 
poet we can readily understand why he could pen such an 
exact simile in the lines: 

". . . arms on which the standing muscle sloped, 
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 
Running too vehemently to break upon it." 

Individual Differences in Imagination. — There are manifestly 
very great individual differences in the power of imaging. 
Some persons possess a good imagination for all classes of sense- 
percepts, others possess remarkable powers in a certain class, as 
sight, and still others are almost devoid of any powers of vivid 
imagery. The classic investigations of Sir Francis Galton for 
the first time revealed these striking individual differences in 
mental processes. The fact that people are incredulous about 
such differences is a strange thing. That such mental differ- 
ences exist is no more strange than that some people are tall, 
some short, or some red-haired and some black-haired. But 
the popular mind is slow to recognize that mind is the greatest 
variable in existence. Galton asked a very large number of 
persons to study their imagery by the following test: "Think 
of some definite object — suppose it is your breakfast-table as 

1 Carpenter, op. at., p. 502. 



NATURE OF IMAGINATION 487 

you sat down to it this morning — and consider carefully the 
picture that rises before your mind's eye. 

"(1) Illumination. — Is the image dim or fairly clear? Is its 
brightness comparable to that of the actual scene? 

" (2) Definition. — Are all the objects pretty well defined at 
the same time, or is the place of sharpest definition at any one 
moment more contracted than it is in a real scene? 

" (3) Coloring.— Are the colors of the china, of the toast, 
bread-crust, mustard, meat, parsley, or whatever may have been 
on the table, quite distinct and natural?" 

He says that the first results of his inquiry amazed him. Some 
protested that mental imagery was entirely unknown to them; 
others habitually possessed imagery full of distinctness, detail, 
and color. Scientific men seemed to have much less vivid and 
exact imagery than the unscholarly. Later researches have 
disclosed great differences among different individuals, and also 
that a given individual may have some type much better devel- 
oped than others. It is probable that mature individuals and 
scholars have not lost their powers of imagination, but that they 
utilize higher modes of thinking than children and the untrained. 
The former could, if necessary, think by means of the more 
primitive method — through imagery. 1 

1 Galton, Inquiries info Human Faculty, pp. 83-114. The reader should also 
consult Bentley, "The Memory Image," American Journal of Psychology, vol. 
XI; Lay, Mental Imagery; Pillsbury, "Meaning and Image," Psychological 
Review, vol. XV; Betts and Woodworth, previously cited. These, with the 
special references cited throughout the text, will be a sufficient guide to the litera- 
ture of the various phases of the subject. 



CHAPTER XIX 
IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 

General Considerations. — A person with a well-developed 
imagination can repicture clearly, vividly, and accurately a great 
variety of perceptions which have been gained through personal 
experiences. He also has the ability to recombine his imagery 
so as to construct new pictures out of the elements of the repro- 
ductive images. A well-trained power of imagination enables 
the possessor in addition to hold voluntarily before the mind 
any selected images and to exclude others. Through voluntary 
selection the trained individual is able to reproduce his imagery 
for advantageous consideration and to recombine elements into 
logical, consistent trains of imagery and thus lead to the con- 
struction of new and original combinations. 

The child usually possesses vivid imagery, but the images 
lack accuracy. The child also lacks voluntary control of his 
images and trains of thought. Consequently, the child's fancy 
is flitting, incoherent, inconsistent, and ineffective. The child 
thinks out very fanciful stories, but they would hardly make a 
consistent piece of fiction. It is only with effort and through 
training that the adult is able to control thoroughly his imagina- 
tion. It is erroneous to regard the child's imagination as being 
better or stronger than that of the adult. The unbridled play 
of fancy in the child causes his ideas to run riot, and as imagina- 
tion is so frequently made identical with fancy, his imagination 
has come to be regarded as stronger than that of the adult. 
The great activity and vividness of the child's imagination 
coupled with the fact that every imagined product deepens im- 
pressions on the brain and the mind in precisely the same way 
that original perceptions do, suggests that this power should 

488 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 489 

contribute much in the education of the child. Not only may 
intellectual lessons be reinforced, but we may emphasize if not 
actually create moral tendencies by stimulating the child's 
imagination in right directions. Just as bodily health or disease 
may be induced through the imagination, may we not induce 
mental health or disease by imaginative stimulation? Ideas 
held before the mind tend to result in the corresponding activ- 
ities, hence the desirability of holding only correct ideas and 
ideals before the mind. Harboring immoral imaginations will 
tend to convert them into beliefs, and we are to a large extent 
what we believe. 

What Training Involves. — Training the imagination may con- 
cern itself with either increasing the power of vivid recall or with 
control of the train of imagery, directing it into desired channels 
and thus leading toward the creation of new and original com- 
binations. From the discussion of the psychological meaning 
of the imagination it can readily be inferred that the key to its 
training lies in the proper development of sense-perception. 
To state it formally, there are requisite: (1) Opportunity for 
abundant sensory experiences; (2) Judicious guidance and 
direction along proper channels; (3) Sufficient exercise in re- 
viving actual experiences; (4) Practice in building accurately 
imaginary pictures painted by another, as in literature, geo- 
graphical descriptions, etc.; (5) Attempts at constructive imag- 
ination. 

Recognition of Individual Differences. — In view of the fact that 
there are great individual differences in the power of imagery, 
the question arises whether we should attempt to develop the 
special talents or supply deficiencies and try to secure equal 
powers in all directions ? Three types of imagination undoubt- 
edly have become of greatest importance in our lives. These are 
the visual, the auditory, and the tactile; and an attempt should 
be made to secure at least a medium degree of proficiency in 
reproducing each of these classes of images. The senses of 
taste and smell are not so absolutely essential, but, however, 
unless the sense organs are defective they should receive training, 



490 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

as the pleasures of life may be much enhanced by being able to 
recall images in terms of these senses. 

These individual differences in imagination should be recog- 
nized in education. The kind of imagination one possesses often 
determines his success in a given subject of study or in a given 
occupation in life. The type of imagination possessed by a 
pupil may also determine his method of studying particular 
subjects. One child learns spelling best by visualizing, another 
by audilizing, another by reproducing the ideas in motor terms. 
One learns best what he reads by reproducing it visually, 
another by reviving the sound, another by feeling the action of 
the vocal cords or the muscles involved. I know of two children 
who are taking piano lessons. One of them can play from 
memory without the notes anything once mastered; the other 
must always have the written music or she cannot reproduce any 
of the lessons. The first has good auditory imagery, the other 
is very lacking in this type but depends upon visual and motor 
imagery. Some people are wofully lacking in the power of 
visualization. Such persons cannot draw, could not become 
good architects or designers, can invent nothing, and probably 
could not build anything so that the joints and parts would fit. 
They could not make a success of real geometry study. They 
might memorize demonstrations but could not fully comprehend 
them. It frequently happens that a boy is a great success in 
algebraic mathematics and an equal failure in geometric mathe- 
matics. Success in the latter demands a high type of visualiz- 
ing power. Similarly many boys bright in geometry, drawing, 
and natural science may make signal failures in their music. 
To achieve success in music requires especial powers of auditory 
imagery. Successful designers of wall-paper, carpet patterns, 
furniture, textile patterns, and decorations; fresco painters, 
milliners, dressmakers, tailors, architects, and inventors, must 
all have good powers of visual imagery. One who possesses 
special powers of visual imagery should seek an occupation 
giving opportunity for their employment. 

The possessor of a notably vivid auditory imagination should 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 491 

turn to music, language, or some occupation demanding fine 
powers of auditory discrimination. No one has ever become 
a skilled vocal linguist without possessing ability to detect fine 
shades of sound differences and the power of accurate revival 
through imagery. The great musical composer must hear in 
auditory imagination every instrument, every voice, and every 
note to be produced before he can really compose the new pro- 
duction. Mosso says: "An able dramatic writer once told me 
that when he composes he has to shut himself up in his study 
because he is obliged to make his characters continually talk 
aloud. He receives them as if on the stage, shakes hands with 
them, offers them a chair, follows them in every little gesture, 
laughs or cries with them as occasion demands. When he 
writes he always hears the voices of his actors." The possession 
of vivid tactile imagery is rare — certainly in adults. Frequently 
it is developed in the blind because of the lack of visual imagery. 
To be able to revive tactile perceptions accurately is a gift as 
valuable as rare. The great surgeon owes his skill largely to 
this power. Artistic skill in drawing, painting, or sculpture 
depends much on tactile imagery. 

How to control properly the imagination is a question second 
in importance to no other in the realm of intellectual training. 
"Here in a child's imaginings," says Dr. Burnham, "is a vast 
fund of spontaneous interest. How to utilize it; how to check 
imagination when extreme without wasting this spontaneous 
interest; how to develop imagination when deficient — in a word, 
how to adapt education to individual differences in productive 
imagination — such are the teacher's problems. . . . There is 
infinite variety in the talents and in the deficiencies of human 
beings. Teachers must study the individual differences in their 
pupils. . . . Careful study of the effect of different methods 
might show that no method has ever been employed that had 
not some good in it for some individual; but it would also show 
that no method (except in its general principles) is of universal 
application." * 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, 2 : 224. 



492 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Importance of Varied Development of Imagination. — It is 

very important that children have opportunity for exercising the 
various types of imagination. If only one type is appealed to 
a habit of depending upon that type is developed. This may 
lead to inefficiency in various kinds of activities. It may also 
produce one-sidedness of mental development, because excessive 
stimulation will produce hypertrophy in one direction and the 
lack of exercise will lead to atrophy in others. The varied life 
activities demand imaginative power of many kinds, and the 
individual lacking in any one phase of development is debarred 
from efficient participation in certain activities. If lacking in 
imaginative insight in many directions he will be seriously 
handicapped in life's race. Even in school the pupil who de- 
pends upon a limited range of imagination appears to be unre- 
sourceful and lacking in success. To enjoy life through the 
imagination the types must be varied. A single type of imagery 
continuously experienced becomes monotonous. We should be 
able to enjoy music, painting, landscapes, literary art, scientific 
imagery, the practical arts, etc. The school should afford a 
wide range of imaginative exercises so as to give power of enjoy- 
ment; to give efficiency in dealing with life's problems; and to 
help in discovering special talents which pupils may possess. 
There is no more inviting and promising field of educational 
psychology at present than that of the study of types of 
mental imagery. We need especially to know how to readily 
and surely discover the types of imagery possessed by given 
pupils. 

Dangers from One-sided Development. — There are several 
dangers attendant upon a too highly specialized power of 
imagination. Pathological disturbances seem easily induced by 
over-specialization. A particular type of imagery may become 
so persistent and obtrusive as to produce insanity. The hal- 
lucinations are due to abnormal imagery, so vivid as to be 
believed as reality. The images pursue the patient during the 
insanity with the utmost persistence. Between complete insan- 
ity and normal life there are many stages of affliction from insist- 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 493 

ent ideas. Some persons cannot climb to high altitudes without 
imagining themselves jumping off. The idea may persist and 
through the laws of ideo-motor action it may become an actual- 
ity. Many have been troubled by certain songs or tunes contin- 
ually obtruding themselves in consciousness. These may be as 
harmless as "Annie Rooney," or "Wait Till the Clouds Roll 
By," or they may be more objectionable. Words and phrases 
may continually recur in consciousness and become very exas- 
perating. Some words that one has accidentally caught persist 
with the most annoying pertinacity. Diseases are initiated or 
exaggerated through the imagination. Quacks seize upon this 
fact and distribute literature asking whether patients have not 
certain symptoms which are sure indications of an early grave. 
The unsophisticated readily begin to develop these symptoms 
and really become diseased. The influence of the imagination 
in alleviating diseases is well known to good physicians. A 
large percentage of ailments need no other medicine than 
cheerfulness and an imagination that the possessor is well or 
recovering. 

Not all hallucinations are cases of exaggerated persistent 
visual imagery. Auditory images may be equally obtrusive. 
Among historical examples of auditory hallucinations are the 
demon of Socrates, Mahomet's celestial messenger, Luther's 
devil, and the voices inciting Joan of Arc. "Queyrat cites the 
case of a composer who had unusual auditory imagination. As 
he sat by his fire and recalled the song of a linnet that he had 
heard during a walk in the field, he heard a complete sym- 
phony — Beethoven's 'Pastorale.' Nothing was lacking, al- 
though at times the voices of nature mingled with the orches- 
tra. But his marvellous imagination had exasperating caprices. 
Often for entire days some vulgar refrain of a hand-organ 
would keep repeating itself. There was no means of escap- 
ing from this obsession. Even sleep did not avail; and the 
more he exerted himself to shake it off, the more it clung to 
him." l 

1 Quoted by W. H. Burnham, Pedagogical Seminary, 2 : 219. 



494 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

IMAGINATION IN THE FORMAL SCHOOL SUBJECTS 

Imagination in Geography Study. — Geography has for a long 
time been denominated the subject par excellence for exercising 
the imaginative powers. Unfortunately the very phase which 
lends itself to the basal training of imagination has been over- 
looked. Because one can take imaginary journeys and through 
his mental flight annihilate space and time, because of the un- 
bridled liberty given to the imagination in geographical thinking, 
this subject has acquired its reputation. The subject, properly 
taught, does employ the imagination, but not as popularly sup- 
posed. It is just because geography deals with objective re- 
alities — physical phenomena and human activities — that it de- 
serves a high place as a realm for the exercise of the imagination. 
In a large measure it deals with things, the elements of which 
either have been personally perceived, or may be exhibited by 
objective or pictorial representation. This is not true of the 
subtle phases of history or literature, especially those aspects 
dealing with intellectual and emotional life. Although life 
should form the core of geographical instruction we are there 
concerned with its more outward characteristics: what people 
are doing; how they live; the houses they live in; their cloth- 
ing, food, amusements, religion, schools, their art galleries, the 
scenery they enjoy, products, manufactures, interchange of 
goods, etc. Not a single one of these ideas but that is sus- 
ceptible of pictorial representation, and not one but may be ap- 
perceived in terms of sense experiences obtainable in any good 
course in home-geography. 

The primary desideratum in training the imagination through 
geographical instruction — or its correlate, geographical teaching 
through imagination — is adequate contact with sufficiently varied 
surroundings. Some writers rightly advocate a rich fund of 
experiences gleaned from rural life — a study of land and water 
forms, processes of land sculpture, plant and animal life, etc. 
They also constantly bewail the life of the city child. It is true 
that the city child who never gets into country surrroundings 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 495 

suffers a fundamental lack in his experiences. He is debarred 
from enjoyment through imaginative contemplation of much that 
is suggested in his study of the sciences and literature. But, is 
there not an equal lack suffered by the country child through his 
deprivations from contact with life — human life — as aggregated 
in urban surroundings ? We must acknowledge that the young 
child is fortunate if not too early stimulated by the complexities 
of metropolitan life; but at some time in the pupil's experiences 
he should witness some of the scenes of the modern city. When 
we consider that a large percentage of civilized people are con- 
gregated in the cities and that only in the cities is manufacturing 
engaged in, that in the cities evidences of the world's greatest 
achievements in science, art, education, and politics are to be 
found, then we must equally recognize that if a child studies 
geography in which life is the core around which all is grouped, 
he must have become, for a time at least, one of the great busy, 
bustling throng, there to see, hear, touch, feel, what people in 
that tumultuous crowd see, hear, touch, and feel. Otherwise, 
when he studies foreign life, because of the law of the limitation 
of the imagination he can in no way represent them as realities. 
For one, I commiserate the country youth who, when studying 
foreign geography, struggles with the complexities of city life 
which find no responsive chord in himself. The great metro- 
politan centres, with their shipping, their railroads, their muse- 
ums, cathedrals, art galleries, and ceaseless hum of factories 
mean little to him unless he has seen and heard something akin 
to these with his own eyes and ears. 

Everything possible should be done to secure objective illus- 
tration of as large a fund of facts as possible. Wherever prac- 
ticable things should be seen in their natural habitat, plants in 
the fields, rocks in the ledges, etc. Excursions should be of 
frequent occurrence in all schools. The fresh air and exercise 
are themselves conducive to clear brains and vivid imaginations. 
Many city children have never seen common domestic farm 
animals such as the cow, pig, hen, and sheep. Their only ideas 
have been built up from pictures. Their ideas through this 



4 q6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

source are often so erroneous that many children have thought 
the cow no larger than a mouse. The pictures were of the same 
size, why should they not so think? "Such children," writes 
Guillet, 1 "are being starved not only in one of their strongest 
interests, but also in language and ideas, for all languages are 
replete with metaphors, proverbs and other folk-lore which 
allude to animals and plants and which must therefore remain 
meaningless to them." Excursions should include factories, 
foundries, flouring mills, paper mills, tanneries, printing offices, 
brick-yards, stone quarries, water-works, gas-works, electric- 
lighting plants, railroad depots, commission houses, museums, 
art galleries, law-courts, legislative halls, caucuses, etc., the 
particular ones visited depending upon the locality. Not infre- 
quently are classes taught about plants, soils, and minerals, 
without a single objective illustration, not seldom do pupils 
"pass" in the subject of civil government without ever having 
witnessed a single feature discussed. It is not unusual to have 
pupils study dynamos without any observation of a real dynamo. 
It is still words, words, words! 

The school museum should also be a prominent feature of 
every school. In it should be found specimens of forest, field, 
factory, and trade from home surroundings, and as much as 
means will allow illustrating the life of other countries. Extended 
zoological, botanical, and mineralogical cabinets are not usually 
so educative for children as collections typifying the industrial 
and social life of people — remember that the people are to be 
the centre of interest. Children should be encouraged in their 
natural instinct for making collections. More geography has 
frequently been learned by a boy through his stamp collection — 
which his teachers and parents may have ridiculed and tried to 
destroy — than in all of his hours of formal toil at the subject. 
Of two hundred and twenty-nine boys, Dr. G. Stanley Hall found 
that only nineteen had no collections. Thirty-two per cent, of 
these had made collections from nature, and thirty-four percent, 
had made postage-stamp collections. The age at which the 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, 7 : 432. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 497 

postage-stamp instinct is at its height seems to be from nine to 
eleven years of age — just the age when geography is one of the 
dominant school subjects. 

In studying the geography of foreign countries we must make 
it concrete, even where not feasible to make it objective. The 
child should get many details so that the concepts may be full 
of meaning. Much should remain in his mind in the form of 
generic images. Even where the ideas are of the conceptual 
order there must be a possibility of "concreting" the abstract. 
In order to secure fulness and concreteness, the text-book will 
have to be abandoned, or at any rate considered as a text, with 
the context to be supplied. Most books are altogether too con- 
densed. Here is a sample description of the people of Holland 
as given in a recent geography: "The Dutch are an exceedingly 
thrifty, hard-working people. They succeed in raising good 
crops of rye, wheat, oats, and other farm produce, and they ex- 
port cattle, sheep, butter, and cheese." The whole consideration 
of Holland occupies less than a page, one-fourth of that space 
being given to two pictures — the best part of the whole descrip- 
tion for children. But with the necessary generality of the state- 
ments what could remain in the child's mind except words ? No 
imagery has been suggested because the discussion is concerned 
with giving superlatively condensed statements expressive of 
concepts. Now we have seen that concepts cannot be imaged. 
Only individual notions are capable of being imaged, and as no 
concrete notions have been given, we have then not real knowl- 
edge, for the concepts can only be constructed through the accu- 
mulation of particulars, but we have merely the symbols repre- 
senting knowledge. The words in such cases correspond to the 
untranslated x in an equation. 

In order to get a picture of Holland the pupils should see as 
many objects from there as are obtainable and at least see pictures 
of many other things illustrative of Holland life. In this picture 
there must be definite imagery of the historic windmills, its 
" misty-moisty " climate, the sluggish rivers, flat land — so flat 
that from a certain tower in Utrecht almost the entire country 



498 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

can be seen; we must image the three great enemies of Holland, 
the lakes which they drain, the rivers which they imprison, and 
the great arch-enemy, the sea, which they combat, sometimes 
successfully, sometimes themselves overwhelmed; we must 
image the reclaimed acres and the dikes, which nobody has ever 
described perfectly in words; the alarm bells; the stage-boats 
on the canals in summer and the whole families from grandsire 
to grandchildren on skates in winter; the storks on the roofs, 
with the traditions which each little Hollander is told concerning 
these sacred birds; the Dutch fishing-boats, the awkward carts, 
the housewives scrubbing the floors; the wooden shoes with 
silver buckles, the short petticoats and gorgeous head-dresses; 
the Delft-ware and the naturalistic paintings of Rembrandt, 
van de Velde, and Ruysdael. These and scores of other objects 
and events must be brought before the pupil so vividly that he 
projects himself into the scene as an actual witness. This can be 
accomplished only by presenting many details and in a concrete 
way. It is only by this means that a proper conceptual idea can 
arise. To leave out of Dutch life the windmills, the dikes, 
the storks, and the habits of the people would be like teaching 
Hamlet with Hamlet left out. It is not impossible to teach all 
the above concretely, either by objects, pictures, or through 
verbal description which portrays the new scenes in terms of 
known experiences. 

"Recently I went into a practice school connected with the 
University of Chicago," writes President Faunce, "where I saw 
the children gathered round a teacher who was reading to them 
the poem of Hiawatha, and their eyes were wide with wonder. 
Then they went over into the Field Columbian Museum and saw 
the materials of Indian life, the tents and the wampum, the 
feathers and the moccasins, and all the utensils of the Indian 
household. Then they returned and modelled in clay an Indian 
village, with Hiawatha at one end of it, and all over it the marks 
of the creative imagination." In contrast Dr. Faunce says: 
"I, too, learned Hiawatha, side by side with Mr. Colburn's 
ingenuities. I could spell the name of every tree in Hiawatha's 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 499 

forest, but would not have known one of them if I had seen it. 
I could pronounce the name of every beast on the American 
continent or in Noah's ark, but knew nothing about any one of 
them." * 

Collections of pictures should form a part of the equipment 
of every geographical class-room. Such collections as are found 
in many magazines and accompanied by verbal description can 
be easily obtained and they serve to awaken great interest and to 
make things real. Photographs can frequently be secured. 
The stereopticon views are still better. One only needs to 
watch the crowds going to the "magic-lantern" shows and the 
moving-picture shows to know the interest that is aroused by 
views projected upon the screen. Things appear to stand out 
in three-dimensional space and the perfect illusions might 
almost cause one to mistake the representations for the realities. 
No one ever obtained much of an idea of a glacier from an ordi- 
nary picture and verbal description. But I have seen stereopti- 
con views that almost made one hear the detonation as immense 
blocks of ice fell into the sea. What promises to be of vastly 
greater value still is the kinematograph which will produce the 
moving picture. What complex scenes are we not able to portray 
vividly to the eye. One only lacks real auditory impressions, 
and they will be awakened through imaginative representations. 
Every school-room should at least be supplied with a good 
lantern and it should be a part of every teacher's equipment to 
know how to operate it. The moving-picture machine is now 
so perfect that it is to be hoped the day is not distant when every 
school shall possess one. 

These perceptual notions should more and more be enriched 
through the images reproduced from former perceptions. The 
words of the teacher and descriptive books should also bring 
often into requisition as large a stock of images as possible. 
Finally, when a vast array of fundamental notions has been 
derived through the medium of sense-experience the representa- 
tions may be stimulated entirely through verbal description. 

1 School Review, 8 : 573. 



500 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Thus by the time a pupil is able to read standard literature it 
ought to be no longer necessary to resort to objective or pictorial 
illustration to convey the pictures delineated by the writer. 
They ought to be called into being by their verbal symbols. 
But until the word has received a content based upon experience 
the word can call up no image. In this higher stage, which is 
of equal importance with the lower, new pictures are created 
through combination of the pictures suggested by the words. 

If geography is taught according to the method suggested it 
may become one of the richest subjects in the whole curriculum. 
It need no longer remain "the poor man's study," but one 
which is rich in basal concepts for almost every other subject. 
It furnishes most of the fundamental apperceptive content for the 
material sciences, and dealing as it does with life in all its rela- 
tions, it furnishes the indispensable preliminary to the under- 
standing of literature, history, commerce, economics, politics, 
and even education and religion. 

Imagination in Scientific Study. — "Physical investigation, 
more than anything else besides, helps to teach us the actual 
value and right use of the Imagination," said Sir Benjamin 
Brodie in an address to the Royal Society. 1 It is not only im- 
portant as a means of training but the sciences themselves could 
never be profitably pursued without a judicious use of the 
imagination. The same noted authority says that this power 
when "properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes 
the noblest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius, the 
instrument of discovery in science, without the aid of which 
Newton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have 
decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have 
found another continent." 

It needs to be clearly understood that the repicturing of things 
exactly as they are is the essence of imagination. To look upon 
a plant and then when it is no longer present to recall its details 
of root, stem, branches, leaves, color, or shape, is to imagine. 
To observe a hydrostatic press and later recall the relations of 

1 Quoted by Tyndall, Fragments of Science, p. 417. 






IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 501 

the lever, piston, valves, bolts, and standards, is to exercise 
imagination. The student who looks through the microscope 
and sees unicellular beings, then turns away and draws them 
exactly is exercising imagination of the most accurate kind. To 
view the proper geometric figure in connection with the Pytha- 
gorean theorem and then without having the book or paper 
present to see the figure and all its relations with the mind's eye, 
is to exercise imaginative processes no less than to write a book 
of fiction. In fact the former is the more fundamental and the 
latter is apt to be incoherent, hazy, and inexact unless a founda- 
tion has been laid through imagination of the former, exact, 
reproductive type. Imagination is employed in acquiring and 
recalling the concrete details of science no less than in building 
up notions of relations and theories which have not been tested 
by observation of material things. Reproductive imagination 
is employed in the former case, productive or constructive in the 
latter. The former is prerequisite to the latter, a fact which is 
so often overlooked. If this exact reproduction of definite 
notions of material things, gained through the senses of sight, 
sound, touch, taste, smell, and weight is insisted upon the com- 
binative imagination will almost take care of itself. At any 
rate, there is no place for the latter without definite images to 
combine. Thus the scientist with his exact consideration of 
material things has as much — I am inclined to think much more 
— to do with the development of powerful creative imaginations 
as the poet, the painter, or the sculptor. 

President Eliot said: 1 "The imagination is the greatest of 
human powers, no matter in what field it works — in art or liter- 
ature, in mechanical invention, in science, government, com- 
merce or religion; and the training of the imagination is, there- 
fore, far the most important part of education. . . . Construc- 
tive imagination is the great power of the poet, as well as of the 
artist, and the nineteenth century has convinced us that it is also 
the great power of the man of science, the investigator, and the 
natural philosopher. . . . The educated world needs to recog- 

1 Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1903, p. 51. 



502 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

nize the new varieties of constructive imagination. . . . Zola, 
in La Bete humaine, contrives that ten persons, all connected 
with the railroad from Paris to Havre, shall be either murderers 
or murdered, or both, within eighteen months; and he adds two 
railroad slaughters criminally procured. The conditions of 
time and place are ingeniously imagined, and no detail is omitted 
which can heighten the effect of this homicidal fiction. Contrast 
this kind of constructive imagination with the kind which con- 
ceived the great wells sunk in the solid rock below Niagara that 
contain the turbines, that drive the dynamos, that generate the 
electric force that turns thousands of wheels and lights thousands 
of lamps over hundreds of square miles of adjoining territory; 
or with the kind which conceives the sending of human thoughts 
across three thousand miles of stormy sea instantaneously on 
nothing more substantial than ethereal waves. . . . There is 
going to be room in the hearts of twentieth-century men for a 
high admiration of these kinds of imagination, as well as for 
that of the poet, artist or dramatist. ... It is one lesson of the 
nineteenth century, then, that in every field of human knowledge 
the constructive imagination finds play — in literature, in history, 
in theology, in anthropology, and in the whole field of physical 
and biological research. That great century has taught us that, 
on the whole, the scientific imagination is quite as productive 
for human service as the literary or poetic imagination. .The 
imagination of Darwin or Pasteur, for example, is as high and 
productive a form of imagination as that of Dante, or Goethe, 
or even Shakespeare, if we regard the human uses which result 
from the exercise of imaginative powers, and mean by human 
uses not merely meat and drink, clothes and shelter, but also the 
satisfaction of mental and spiritual needs." 

We have already indicated that nature study furnishes valua- 
ble training in exact imagination. It is also a special theatre for 
the development of the constructive imagination. Child-life 
loves nature. Most children are happiest when in direct contact 
with nature. Not alone because the conventionalities of civil- 
ized life are cast aside, but also because it offers attractions of 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 503 

its own. That is, it is attractive if studied as a unity. In early 
child-life it should not be minutely analyzed and studied apart 
from its natural setting. It should not be dissected and sliced 
and teased apart until nothing related remains. One of the 
great lessons that should be felt at least is that of the unity of all 
nature. The child naturally seems to feel this unity, and unless 
the feeling is carelessly destroyed it may promote the highest 
of all interests — religious interest. All forms of nature are 
eloquent teachers. They appeal to the child's imagination in 
a way that no human being could. Contact with nature is a 
most genuine, eloquent exhortation to a contemplation of the 
Divine. Consider the feelings awakened and the imaginative 
scenes produced by viewing the mighty ocean, the virgin forest, 
the beautiful fields, the tiny babbling streamlet, the lurid light- 
ning flash and the thunder peal of a storm! All the poets have 
sung of the emotions awakened through the contemplation of 
nature, and an appeal to individual experience can but confirm 
the reasons therefor. An investigation carried out by the writer 
a few years ago in which the experiences of many children were 
collated, gave striking evidence of this universal reverence for 
nature. When alone with the forests, the rocks, or the sea, for 
companions, one's thoughts turn instinctively toward the con- 
templation of the universal, which cannot but lead to a search for 
the primal cause, for the constant, the all-powerful — for God. 
To the thoughtful child it is inevitable that he should picture the 
world beyond, from that the cause of the world, the cause of 
that cause, and so on ad infinitum. The earliest conclusions are 
that there is a suprasensuous being that acts upon the sensible 
world. Here we have the root idea of all religions. It is con- 
crete, every force and every being is imaged. Now all of this 
play of the imagination is perfectly normal and healthy. In fact 
it is necessary to advancement. A similar play of the imagina- 
tion in building new theories and constantly wondering is at 
the basis of all true learning. 

For one with some genius in painting no better foundation for 
science could be had than an exact and exacting course in dc- 



504 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

scriptive geometry as given in an engineering school. Doubt- 
less all our great painters and sculptors owe much of their 
success in producing ideal creations to their exact knowledge of 
anatomy and architecture. These subjects are always pre- 
scribed in schools of art. A great architect must see every 
minutest detail even in his most unique creations. It is said 
that Michelangelo before beginning to decorate a room in 
fresco spent days and days studying intently the bare walls 
and picturing exactly what was to appear. Some one re- 
monstrated with him for such a waste of time, but he said: 
"I have to see my picture before I can paint it." "With ac- 
curate experiment and observation to work upon, imagination 
becomes the architect of physical theory. Newton's passage 
from a falling apple to a falling moon was an act of the pre- 
pared imagination, without which the 'laws of Kepler' could 
never have been traced to their foundations. Out of the facts 
of chemistry the constructive imagination of Dalton formed the 
atomic theory." ! In the study of sound the imagination must 
be called upon to transcend actual experience. "The bodily 
eye, for example, cannot see the condensations and rarefactions 
of the waves of sound. We construct them in thought, and 
we believe as firmly in their existence as in that of the air 
itself." 2 Then carry it over into the realm of light. In micro- 
scopic work only flat surfaces are seen — the imagination must 
build up the third dimension and the relations between the 
parts. 

Just because natural science deals with objects perceived by 
the senses it affords unsurpassed opportunities for imagination. 
As indicated it need not be confined to exact copies of things 
perceived. It may be used to recombine in the most unheard-of 
ways. It may picture the most fantastic combinations and 
conceive of these elements as working according to laws before 
undreamed of. In fact this is the course of science. It is not 
unscientific to do this provided we further do what the true 

1 Tyndall, Fragments of Science, p. 419. 

2 Tyndall, op. cit., p. 421. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 505 

scientist does, viz., test the conclusions. Barring the small part 
played by accident in discovery this has been the course followed 
in the development of science. "First comes the conjecture 
pictured by the imagination, then logic and reasoning, then the 
test by observation and experiment. This is the necessary order 
of discovery, and it is the best order for the student who will 
follow in the footsteps of the discoverer. It is, and must be, the 
path of the discoverer. His mind must work pictorially." l 

Imagination and Invention. — In every invention a result to 
be attained has to be pictured and then known appliances tested 
to see how far they will meet the requirements. If they fall 
short they must be varied and combined and recombined in such 
a way as to reach a result. The man who invented copper toes 
for shoes asked himself: "What will make that part of the shoe 
wear as long as the rest?" He set about imagining various 
things that would produce the result. Copper caps were finally 
hit upon and the inventor was made rich. The invention of the 
steam engine was a similar process. What new motive power 
can be used in exerting great force ? was the question set. Steam 
had lifted the lid of the tea-kettle and the imagination confined 
great amounts of steam in a cylinder, and then conceived a 
piston to compress the air and the problem was solved. The 
imagination has discovered atoms and worlds; it has penetrated 
the interstices of all matter; it has encompassed in its glance 
the limits of the universe; it has espied the invisible force which 
unites all things terrestrial and celestial; it has stolen the secret 
laws of all the varying changes in the universe; it has enslaved 
these laws and forces; it has joined them in infinitesimal per- 
mutations; it has harnessed the cosmic forces singly and tandem 
in w-fold forms and caused them to do service from the most 
menial to the most exalted ; it has ploughed our fields and gar- 
nered the bounteous harvests; it has lighted our homes; it has 
clad us warmly and fed us bountifully; it has provided us aesthetic 
enjoyment as in music, art, and poetry; it has girt the globe with 
means of transit ; by its achievements knowledge of the thoughts 

1 Tyler, School Review, 6 : 721-2. 



5 o6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

and actions of all mankind is borne on lightning pulsations 
to every corner of the globe. 

Imagination in the Study of Literature. — In training the imag- 
ination in literary study first see that the literature studied is 
imaginative; and then let it appeal to all the senses so that liter- 
ature may quicken the boy to say like Christopher Sly: 

"I see, I hear, I speak; 
I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things." 

Further, the laws of apperception must be heeded. It is 
absurd to expect the child to imagine when no elements are 
already in his possession. Parts of Childe Harold, though 
beautiful verse, would awaken no representations in the mind 
of a reader unacquainted with Italian skies. Similarly The Lady 
of the Lake would call up very little visual imagery to a child 
not made acquainted, through personal observation or pictorial 
representation, with the Scottish mountains, lakes, and Highland 
costumes. What vague, distorted pictures must be evolved by 
children, life-long residents in the slum districts of a metro- 
politan city like London or New York, and who have never 
made an excursion beyond their own ward, when they read the 
opening stanza of Gray's Elegy: 

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me." 

They have never beheld a herd, perhaps not even a cow; their 
only estimate is one gained from pictures, and undoubtedly many 
a boy has thus gained the idea that a cow and a mouse are of the 
same size. They have never seen a lea; perhaps have never 
set foot on earth — only on pavements. The picture of a fading, 
glimmering landscape is undreamed. Most of the imagery sug- 
gested in the first seven stanzas would be impossible to such 
children until they were provided with the necessary background 
of sensory experience. This leads us to the very practical 
question as to how the sense-perceptions may be supplied? It 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 507 

must be granted that it is not so easy to secure as to prescribe, 
but that in no wise vitiates the theory nor does it lessen the 
desirability nor the imperativeness of providing in every manner 
possible for a. rich perceptual life. And whenever we cannot 
resort to nature we must resort to art to assist us. In many cases 
where words are entirely inadequate, and objective illustration 
impossible, pictures, diagrams, and charts can come to the 
rescue. Pictorial illustration as an aid in teaching was initiated 
by that noble and prophetic old Moravian, John Amos Comenius, 
nearly three hundred years ago, but the manifold use of visual 
representation is only yet in its infancy. The stereopticon can 
be used as well in literature as in geography and physics. A 
good stereopticon ought to be a part of the equipment of every 
school-room, not one for every building, but one for every room, 
for every grade, and every teacher ought to be instructed in the 
technique of its manipulation. Take, for example, Irving's 
Westminster Abbey and combine the effect of lantern views with 
the verbal description given by Irving and how much greater 
would be the effect than by the verbal description alone. In my 
own case the careful study of the verbal description failed to give 
me a picture at all corresponding to reality. Upon visiting the 
abbey I was not a little surprised to find how erroneous my 
notions were concerning it. A few lantern slides would have 
changed my ideas entirely. It has been well said that the foreign 
traveller gets only as much history or geography through his 
travels as he takes with him. 

Gordy wrote aptly: 1 "You would not hire a man to build a 
house without furnishing the necessary materials. Be equally 
reasonable with your pupils, and do not expect them to build 
images out of nothing." Many teachers of reading do, however, 
make this very mistake. They expect literature to furnish the 
basal imagery, when it should only be employed to suggest, 
recall, and recombine images elsewhere gained. Instead of 
beginning with literature in training the imagination it should 
be the last stage. 

1 New Psychology, p. 270. 



508 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The German poet voiced the idea in saying: 

"Wer den Dichter will verstehen 
Muss in Dichters Lande gehen." 

German teachers make much more use of objective or "An- 
schauung" material than American teachers usually do. In 
teaching the classics and the modern foreign languages the at- 
tempt is made to place the pupil in the midst of the people and 
places which he is studying. When studying Rome, he is to 
see the Romans as they were. Roman soldiers and citizens had 
distinctive appearances in dress. The pupil must not think of 
them in German soldiers' and citizens' dress. For example, 
life-size pictures of a Roman soldier, with helmet, shield, javelin, 
and short sword, or of citizens with the toga, form a part of the 
objective material for the lesson on one day. On another day 
the Roman Forum or the Athenian Parthenon is shown in 
drawings on a large scale. When possible, many of the imple- 
ments of war or those used in the industries are brought in from 
the museums for inspection. Frequent trips are made to the 
museums which are found in every town of any size. In 
America we still have to learn the educational value of museums. 
In Germany, " Greek and Roman statuary are on every hand, 
not usually in the school-room, indeed, but accessible, and ancient 
forms of architecture may be pointed out by the teacher during 
any lesson. In this way the subject becomes full of interest and 
reality. It assumes an ineffaceable meaning not to be lightly 
esteemed. I have often observed the correlation of art with 
mathematics, as well as with history — for example, in connection 
with the Pythagorean theorem, the Conchoid of Nicomedes, or 
the octagonal form of the Roman Forum." ! 

In attempting to train the imagination through literature we 
may learn a valuable lesson from a psychological analysis of 
some of the best imaginative literature. We need to bear in 
mind that those images which are clearest and most vivid are 
the ones that are most easily described. Hence we know that 

1 See the author's Secondary School System of Germany, pp. 191, 209. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 509 

those descriptions which are most accurate and convey the clear- 
est pictures to the reader are descriptions of things which have 
come within the writer's actual experience. Scott, bred else- 
where, could never have delineated such masterpieces as The 
Lady of the Lake, Ivanhoe, and Marmion. Byron without 
actual knowledge of Lake Geneva, Swiss mountains and castles, 
and the political vicissitudes of that country could never have 
penned the Prisoner 0} Chillon. No other environment could 
have furnished the same images and stimulated him to describe 
them with the same realistic touches. The Cotter's Saturday 
Night could not have been written by one unpossessed of a 
life-long familiarity with Scottish life. Irving, living in the 
Carolinas or California, could never have depicted the ideal 
Dutch life in old New York nor the Legend 0} Sleepy Hollow. 
Though ideal and fictitious, they are true representations of 
what has been lived. No one but a Yankee bred could 
have written "When the frost is on the punkin," and only 
a child-lover and observer could have produced those sweet, 
inimitable poems given to us by Eugene Field. Halleck has 
studied the greatest bard of all the ages, Shakespeare, to de- 
termine the secret of his great imaginative resources. He has 
shown that Shakespeare's works are replete with allusions to 
nature. The images described are not confined to sight alone, 
but all the senses are appealed to— sight, hearing, touch, taste, 
and smell. Those scenes Shakespeare would never have been 
able to represent without first-hand knowledge of all the things 
he has depicted. The poet's early life was spent out of doors, 
in contact with the fields, the woods, the birds, and the animals. 
Though his parents could probably neither read nor write, the 
young Shakespeare received a splendid education; that is, through 
sensory training he obtained a vast store of images which were 
later woven into such marvellous combinations. 

A few examples will illustrate the use he has made of these 
images in penning beautiful similes and metaphors. He, to 
be sure, is not to be classed among the nature poets, who aim to 
describe nature in song. His chief theme is human nature, but 



510 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

since all things abstract are best described through the concrete, 
let us note how he uses sense-perceptions to build up ideas of the 
most abstract relations, and the deepest human sentiments. 

To give an idea of time he uses many figures, comparing it to 
material things: 

"... and thus the 
whirligig of time brings in his revenges." 

—Twelfth Night, V : i, 453. 1 

"Time is a very bankrupt and owes 
more than he's worth to season. 
Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say, 
That Time comes stealing on by night and day?" 

— The Comedy of Errors, IV : 2, 172. 

Age is portrayed in a realistic way in the following: 

"These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, 
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent; 
Weak shoulders, overborne with burthening grief, 
And pithless arms, like to a wither' d vine 
That droops his sapless branches to the ground: 
Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb, 
Unable to support this- lump of clay, 
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave, 
As witting I no other comfort have." 

— King Henry the Sixth, 1st Part, II : 5, 66. 

He portrays ambition in manifold ways, among them the 
following: 

"This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, 
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. . . ." 

— King Henry the Eighth, III : 2, 240. 

1 The text here followed is that of the "Eversley Edition," edited by C. H. 
Herford, and published by Macmillan & Co. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 511 

Note how he represents adversity: 

"O, how full of briers is this working-day world!" 

— As You Like It, I : 3, 488. 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 
And this our life exempt from public haunt 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good in every thing." 

— As You Like It, II : 1, 493. 

Imagination and Dramatization. — The dramatic instinct 
should be utilized in securing clearness of perception and vivid- 
ness of imagination. In childhood the motor activities are most 
pronounced and the impulse to action is very great. Acting 
the parts represented in a reading lesson is a valuable stimulus 
to thought and an efficient means of impressing the scenes upon 
the memory. Many pupils never gain the slightest suspicion that 
much ordinary literature should suggest to their minds pictures 
like those seen on the stage. They have never thought that 
many or most dramatic stage scenes have been portrayed in 
ordinary prose or poetic form with exactly the same plots and 
dramatic situations depicted, and that the particular form as a 
play is assumed for the purpose of securing the dialogue form. 
Encourage the pupils to act out some selections, e. g., Mile's 
Standish, The Sleeping Princess by Tennyson, Jean Ingelow's 
Songs of Seven, none of which were written for the stage. Have 
them arrange the stage scenes that might be arranged if the 
selections were played. Work out costumes and scenery and 
help them to impersonate the characters portrayed. In this way 
there will dawn upon them a realization that such literature is 
an artistic representation of imaginative creations. What has 
been dull, uninteresting, and inanimate now becomes fraught 
with life. That the writer has depicted human experiences in 
scenes which they are to build up in imagination will be for them 
a new conception. A few weeks spent with a class in the inter- 



5i2 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

pretation and representation of a single selection will give pupils 
more insight into the rich possibilities to be gained from read- 
ing than years of the ordinary saying of words. Every school 
building containing several rooms should be provided with an 
auditorium and a stage where pupils can practise dialogue 
reading and impersonation. This stage should not be used 
chiefly for theatricals, but as an accessory in the interpretation 
of literature. 

Imagination in Composition-writing. — The so-called "lan- 
guage lesson" may be very helpful in training pupils' imagina- 
tion. In turn, the judicious use of the imagination will be 
found one of the best aids toward better language work. Lan- 
guage should always be used for the purpose of expressing ideas, 
clearly, accurately, forcibly, and aesthetically. The imaging 
power is one of the first requisites in securing clear and accurate 
ideas; and when these are secured the proper expression follows 
naturally to a considerable extent. Force and beauty of expres- 
sion are not necessary accompaniments of clear imagery. The 
judicious selection of imagery which is to be included in the con- 
structive product must be taught. The first way of cultivating 
this power is to have pupils follow imaginary literature. Second, 
they should be led to reproduce the imaginary stories. Third, 
they should be led to construct imagery for themselves. To 
accomplish this last step the teacher will need to try various 
devices. There will be little trouble in securing the delineation 
of something imaginary. But in order to secure the description 
of imaginary things true to life, consistent and logical, much 
training will be necessary. One way, which the writer has seen 
tried very effectively, consists in having children write imaginary 
autobiographies of various articles. Take for example, a pin, 
a shoe, a hat, a tin can, a sled, or a watch. This will furnish 
great scope to the play of the imagination. All sorts of episodes 
may be contrived and yet the narration must be consistent with 
fact. A battered old hat or a silk "tile" may form the central 
theme, but it would not do to have the battered old hat and a 
fashionable young "swell" coupled together, nor a poor boy 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 513 

begging for bread buying a silk "tile." If children once hear a 
story of this kind it is surprising what faithful pictures involving 
flights of fancy they can depict. They do it with great zest, too. 
Another device is to read a story until a very interesting part is 
reached, then stop and ask the class to finish it. 

In imaginative literature great skill is demanded in artful 
simile and metaphor making. The description of one unknown 
thing in terms of something familiar and perfectly concrete is 
a part of the work that taxes a writer most severely. These 
comparisons are necessary, not alone for the artistic touch, but 
for strength and clearness. Any one could say: "The glacier 
moved very slowly, at the rate of a mile an hour, and it did not 
move in a straight line, and occasionally tumbled over," but 
see how much is added to the mere understanding, to say nothing 
of the beauty, when Shelley writes: 

"The glaciers creep, 
Like snakes that watch their prey from their far fountains, 
Slowly rolling on." 

The imagery was greatly enhanced. Had we even used the 
word tortuous, the picture would have been much richer than 
with no suggested imagery. 

Read to the children the first part of some simile and ask them 
to complete it. They will soon catch the spirit and will surprise 
you by the apt comparisons they make. Some unlettered coun- 
try people who have been good observers often make most 
striking comparisons. On the other hand when we begin to 
consider the number of original similes that the average educated 
person makes we are surprised at the paucity of original com- 
parisons. If many comparisons are indulged in they consist 
usually of stock illustrations preserved by a faithful verbal 
memory. They are used on all occasions and often with little 
appropriateness. Witness the various uses of the words 
"nice," "lovely," "great," "right," "proper," etc. To be sure 
the most fitting time to make fine phrases is when under the 
inspiration of an emotion that sways the whole being. But the 



514 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

class-room is a good place in which to show what may be done 
and to initiate the habit of using expressive language, so that 
when the wave of emotion does overwhelm one it may be ex- 
pressed in the best way possible. To show that children natu- 
rally learn to express themselves in metaphorical terms, let us 
quote a simile expressed by a four-year-old child. She had been 
watching the shooting of fire-crackers and had observed those 
sputtering ones that we boys called "scizzers." She wanted to 
tell about that species of cracker, and said: "They sound just 
like a dog when it snuffles." Who can suggest better images 
to use in the description? Better language might be chosen, 
but the ideas could not be selected better. Think of one of the 
objects and you can hear the other. The production of an 
appropriate sound image was desired. The image of the 
"snuffling dog" was sufficient to arouse it. 

The value of improvising must not be overlooked. All the 
materials for any picture of imagination have been gained 
through sense-perception, and they have been conserved by the 
memory. One of the characteristics of a good imagination is 
a readiness in reproduction of the memory images and a quick- 
ness in combining these into new wholes. The most ordinary 
and prosaic minds can usually recognize the fitness of the com- 
bination, when once produced, but their slow minds cannot 
call up previously recorded images fast enough nor can- the 
result of combinations be taken in swiftly enough. The poet, 
the wit, and the successful extemporaneous speaker are all per- 
sons who have ready memories and who make lightning associa- 
tions. They sometimes jump at conclusions, but they cannot 
be charged with wearisome reflectiveness. Ofttimes one who 
is not an off-hand speaker may still produce fine word descrip- 
tions in writing. He lacks only the readiness necessary for 
extempore speaking. The power of marshalling quickly all 
one's ideas on a given subject and launching out toward new 
conclusions is very valuable, and practice in so doing will 
increase one's facility very much. Exercises in improvisation 
are very helpful especially to those naturally slow. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 515 

In teaching students to write the same mistakes are frequently 
made as in interpreting literature. They are asked to write 
imaginative stories when they have no foundation in experience. 
Instead of writing trash with no significance they should go out 
into the world to gain first-hand personal experiences. Pupils 
write perfunctorily because they must say something rather than 
because they have something to say. " Out of the fulness of the 
heart the mouth speaketh." No writer of descriptive or imag- 
inative composition has ever depicted anything that could live 
unless he gave it out of the fulness of experience. The college 
student should never be deluded into thinking that he can become 
a great writer by merely studying rhetoric. The fundamental 
prerequisite of all worthy composition is a rich fund of personal 
experiences. Travel, observation, study of objects and problems 
in the concrete are the only efficient basis for authorship. Mark 
Twain's most famous production could never have been sketched 
by one who had not spent his days and nights as a Mississippi 
River pilot. Charles Reade's Cloister and the Hearth or Hugo's 
Les Miserables were only possible to men who had studied every 
inch of territory and mastered the entire life and spirit of the 
times and places portrayed. If some of our fledgling writers 
of fiction dealing with social problems would go into the slums, 
mix with the working man and the capitalist, become citizens 
and meet the politicians, become tramps, wage-earners, or 
something to gain real experiences of which they want to write 
they would produce much less bizarre and visionary conclusions. 
If some of the callow youths who are producing the deluge of 
"short stories" dealing with love would only wait until they 
had had an opportunity to speak from personal experience, we 
should be spared the plague of frothy, drivelling sentimentalism, 
which cannot fail to instil the most perverted notions regarding 
life's most sacred drama and the establishment of the funda- 
mental unit of society — the home. 

Imagination in History. — Tolstoi claims that children are 
interested in history, not because of the facts, but because of the 
artistic dramatic relations calling the imagination into play. I 



516 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

shall allow the distinguished Russian to speak for himself: 
"I am convinced that all the characters, all the events of history, 
interest the pupil, not by means of their historical significance, 
but on account of their dramatic attraction, by reason of the art 
displayed by the historian or more often by popular tradition. 
The history of Romulus and Remus is interesting, not because 
these two brothers founded the most powerful city in the world, 
but because it is attractive, pleasing, wonderful. In a word, 
the child does not have a taste for the history itself, but for 
the art." * 

History affords a golden opportunity for the use of the imag- 
ination, both reproductive and constructive. To study history 
aright we must not only understand the chronicles, but we must 
see, hear, and follow the historic personages. Listen to Burke's 
speeches! See Webster's full rounded visage with eagle eyes 
as he pleads the cause of liberty and union! Not only see and 
hear, but feel all the stirring emotions that welled up in his own 
heart and in the breathless audiences that actually listened. 
Read the speeches aloud, not silently — have the pupils practise 
a term if need be to render the selection in a manner that will 
make you feel the change of blood-flow and the heightened 
emotions. Oratory appeals to the ear and not to the eye. 
Hence, how can pupils imagine oratory unless it is in terms of 
hearing ? Listening to impassioned speeches will tend to make 
all speeches ring through their ears and thrill every fibre. 

Training Through the Fine Arts. — Undoubtedly much more 
of an attempt should be made to develop the imagination by 
means of the fine arts. More people than we assume are lifted 
to ideal planes by means of painting and sculpture. Pictures are 
too costly for large individual collections and only the cheapest 
copies can be obtained by the poor. But in our large cities 
public art galleries ought to be numerous. Professor George 
Harris believes that "the love of pictures is almost universal." 
In support of this belief he says: "When a loan exhibition of 
paintings is opened at the South End in Boston, throngs of 

1 Quoted by Compayre, Psychology Applied to Education, p. 74. 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 517 

manual laborers take the trouble to procure tickets, and comply 
with the request to indicate preferences, the best pictures always 
having a majority of votes. Wealthy men that collect fine 
paintings become more interested in pictures than in business. 
In fact, almost any avocation which is intellectual, artistic, 
scientific, or literary elevates and idealizes." 1 The German 
people are more idealistic and are they not raised more above 
the sordid, utilitarian life than we ? Is it not discernible in the 
university life, in the happy burgher who sings the national 
songs while at his round of daily toil, and in the company of 
soldiers who go marching to the drill ground at daylight listen- 
ing as they march to the inspiring national airs ? Their songs 
all idealize the Vaterland. 

Necessity of Cultivation. — Lastly, to train the imagination the 
child must imagine. That is, he must represent, must image 
the things perceived or verbally portrayed and should also 
recall them frequently. A good means of clarifying imagery 
and making it definite is to require graphic or scenic representa- 
tion of things delineated. Good Herbartians all require children 
to construct Robinson Crusoe's tools, weapons, huts, etc., and 
the "culture epochs" devotees all have made sufficient supplies 
of Hiawatha's wigwams, birch-bark canoes, and moccasins to 
stock many museums. Their procedure exemplifies good ped- 
agogy of the imagination. Snow Bound, Miles Standish, Rip 
Van Winkle, every lesson in history, geography, and science offer 
abundant opportunity for recall through imagery of the ideas 
gained. I have emphasized strongly the necessity of sensory 
experience as basal to all imagination. But that is only the first 
step, and we must not overlook the importance of adequate exer- 
cise in repicturing what has been perceived. It is easily pos- 
sible to allow the child to live too much in the realm of sense- 
perception. Hinsdale says we keep the child too long "thinging 
it" and Schaeffer says the child deals with blocks so long that he 
becomes a blockhead. Representation is a higher process than 
presentation and progress means that the child must advance to 

1 School Review, 6 : 700. 



518 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the highest possible stage. Important as laboratory work is, 
it may degenerate into the most paralyzing sort of instruction 
if there is no opportunity for recall and reflection stimulated by 
the recitation and generous questioning. I have known even 
college students to rush through a year of physics or chemistry 
with no other aim than to finish the prescribed number of ex- 
periments. Mere text-book work with a Socratic teacher would 
be as valuable, for it would at least stimulate reflection and 
necessitate imagery of the chance personal experiences. One 
of the main purposes of the recitation is to give this very 
opportunity for revival of images. It is also a means of sug- 
gesting new combinations and relations and producing new 
imagery. 

Imagination in Every-day Life. — While stress has been laid on 
the education of the imagination in connection with school sub- 
jects, it must not be inferred that imagination is of value in 
scholastic life only. No power of the mind should be more 
active in performing the duties outside of school, and the pur- 
pose of the school training is in part to make the individual more 
efficient and happier in the extra-school occupations throughout 
the rest of his life. The imagination is needed in every art, 
trade, craft, or occupation. For example, the efficient black- 
smith must see exactly, in imagination, the horse's hoof to be 
shod, the wagon tire to be fitted, the function of the bolt or 
brace; and then he must hammer the iron and steel to fit the 
particular case. The painter, the carpenter, the architect, the 
watchmaker, the machinist, the inventor, the type-writer, the 
printer, the landscape gardener, the tailor, the dressmaker, the 
milliner, the musician, the farmer — all need well-trained powers 
of imagination if they are to succeed in life. 

Wonders of the Imagination. — In closing, we may echo the 
statement of Robert Witt that "the possession of a vivid imag- 
ination, of the imaginative faculty in all its variety and many- 
sidedness, is a gift of the gods themselves, and, as it were, price- 
less. Imagination has the power to alter the face of the world, 
to bridge distance, to annihilate time; like an alchemist it can 



IMAGINATION AND EDUCATION 519 

transmute, refine, transform; like the artist it is skilful to glorify 
and to enrich. On the moral side of life it knows how to com- 
fort and encourage, to inspire and control, to animate and to 
rejoice." * 

1 Robert C. Witt, Westminster Review, August, 1900. 



CHAPTER XX 

APPERCEPTION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 

General Illustrations of Apperception. — Lloyd Morgan says 1 
that "As my friend and I are walking along the road, during a 
pause in our conversation we pass a gate at which some cattle 
are standing. We both begin to speak at once, and, after mutual 
apologies and the usual courtesies, he takes the precedence, and 
tells me of the Red Devons with which he has stocked a farm 
which he has lately purchased. When he has spoken, he asks 
me what I was about to say; and I laughingly reply that I was 
merely going to ask whether he thought certain recent promises 
to electors (1892) were much more likely to be fulfilled than 
certain other promises in 1885 concerning three acres and a 
cow. Now here a similar impression, the result of primary 
suggestion, gives rise in two different minds to two different 
trains of ideas. . . . There is not much difficulty in assigning, 
in general terms, reasons for the different results in his .mind 
and in mine. His farm in Devonshire had been for some time 
a topic of thought and discussion, his mind had a constant ten- 
dency to revert to this subject. . . . Probably the farm was 
lurking in the background of his consciousness as he walked 
silently by my side. On the other hand, my own mind was, as 
we say, full of the elections, and of certain statements reported 
to have been made in Wiltshire to catch the agricultural vote. 
The cow appeared to me therefore in an electioneering connec- 
tion. Had a butcher been with us, the cattle might well have 
suggested the peculiar excellence of last year's Christmas beef. 
Or if a student of prehistoric archaeology had been there, his 

1 Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 63. 
520 



APPERCEPTION 521 

mind, through the intervention of Bos primigenius, might have 
wandered to the Europe of primitive times." 

Steinthal tells a story to illustrate how each person's apper- 
ceptive masses color all his mental processes. Six persons, 
strangers to each other, were riding together one day in a com- 
partment railway carriage and one of them proposed to tell the 
vocation of all the rest if they would each write without hesita- 
tion the answer to a question which he would give them. The 
question was: "What destroys its own offspring?" One 
wrote, "Vital force," and was promptly told that he was a 
biologist. The second wrote "War," and was picked out as 
a soldier. The next was called a philologist because his answer 
was "Kronos." The journalist of the party had disclosed his 
identity by writing the word "Revolutionist," and the farmer 
by writing "Boar." "Each one," says Steinthal, "answers the 
first thing that occurs to him, and that is whatever is most nearly 
related to his pursuit in life. Every question is a hole-drilling 
experiment, and the answer is an opening through which one 
sees into our interiors. . . . We are able to recognize the clergy- 
man, the soldier, the scholar, the business man, not only by the 
cut of their garments and the attitude of their bodies, but by 
what they say and how they express it, . . . by the point of 
view from which they regard things, judge them, conceive them, 
in short by their mode of apperceiving." 

Emerson wrote: "What can we see or acquire, but what we 
are ? You have seen a skilful man reading Vergil. Well, that 
author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take the 
book into your hands, and read your eyes out; you will never 
find what I find. If any ingenious reader would have a monopoly 
of the wisdom or delight he gets, he is as secure now the book is 
Englished, as if it were imprisoned in the Pelews tongue." Ac- 
cording to our training, unfortunately we are apt to look upon 
one of the political parties as being absolutely right and the 
others as wholly deluded. Similarly our views of religious 
denominations and even moral questions are sometimes terribly 
warped by the example and teachings we have received. The 



5 22 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Hindu woman casts her babe into the Ganges to be devoured 
by alligators because she believes such action to be right. Her 
religion teaches her to do it, and frequent examples seem to 
justify the conclusion. The savage believes it to be right to rob 
or slay his enemy, while civilized nations declare against such 
practices. 

In order to understand much of ordinary conversation it is 
necessary to have a large fund of information to form a back- 
ground for its interpretation. The child's readers doubtless 
always contain innumerable common words, of which the child 
has no knowledge beyond their sound. Any teacher who will 
take the trouble to investigate may be astonished to discover 
that some of the most ordinary terms are practically meaningless 
to the children. President G. Stanley Hall in his classical study, 
"The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School" (later 
discussed), astounded many by his revelations of the igno- 
rance of children concerning supposedly familiar words and 
objects. 

It is not difficult to recall illustrations showing how variously 
different persons look upon the same event. The artist viewing 
Niagara Falls goes into ecstasy over the magnificent scenery; 
the engineer says : "What tremendous water-power"; the geolo- 
gist studies the rock strata, the force of the current, and computes 
the age of the earth; the farmer says: " What a waste of farming 
land." We are told that one lady who visited there after dilat- 
ing upon the wondrous scenery turned to her boy, who she 
thought must be awe-struck by the grandeur, and inquired what 
he thought of it. Imagine her amazement when he calmly 
inquired: "Is that the kind of spray you spray my nose with?" 
In childhood one is accustomed to think that the hills he knows 
are so high, the valleys so deep, the rivers so broad, the buildings 
so large, and the people so great. He goes away for a few years, 
returning a grown-up, and anticipates with eagerness the re- 
experience of the same childhood's sensations. Alas, the disil- 
lusionment! The hills have dwindled, the valleys have been 
filled, the buildings have become shrunken, and the people are 



APPERCEPTION 523 

so ordinary. "How changed is all!" he exclaims. "It was not 
thus when I was a child." But he should know that it is he who 
is changed. The "eternal hills" have remained practically as 
they were. But the new scenes and the new life which he has 
experienced have given him glasses colored with interpretations 
which he can never lay aside. Not only have the new ideas 
been interpreted through old ideas, but the old possessions have 
been modified by the new. 

Children's Understanding of Words. — The incorrect use of 
words by children may be frequently traced to entirely erroneous 
ideas back of them. The wrong words substituted reveal the 
incorrectness or the narrowness of their apperceptive masses. 
The right words are not employed solely because there is no 
conception in the mind corresponding to them. The concep- 
tions that are a part of the mental possession force themselves 
to the foreground and the words representing them are their 
natural expression. A child said: "Blessed are the shoe- 
makers," etc. When he had heard the word "peace-makers," 
no correct idea had been gained through the word and the 
expression linked itself with the nearest known idea. The fol- 
lowing mistakes illustrate the same point. A child heard the 
verse: "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." He 
rendered it thus: "A double-minded man is in the stable all the 
time." A child said: "An average is what a hen lays on." He 
had heard some one say that "a hen lays on an average one 
hundred eggs in a season." I said to my boy of three : "That is 
a freight train." " Why is it afraid ? " said he. Children on first 
seeing snow on the ground frequently call it sugar or salt. As 
it floats down they hail it as feathers or as butterflies. A child 
on seeing a pot of ferns called it a pot of green feathers. James 
says the sail of a boat is called a curtain by the child. His 
"child of two played for a week with the first orange that was 
given him, calling it a 'ball.' He called the first whole eggs he 
saw 'potatoes,' having been accustomed to see his 'eggs' broken, 
into a glass, and his potatoes without the skin. A folding pocket- 
corkscrew he unhesitatingly called 'bad-scissors.'" 



524 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Children unreflectingly often mistake new words for those that 
are similar. A "guardian" is thought to be a "gardener," a 
"salon" a "liquor-shop." They make many curious errors in 
interpreting words having a variety of meanings. They think 
" dressed' beef " has on some sort of clothing. A class of mine 
were told one day that we send ministers to England and other 
foreign lands. One child reported the next day that we send 
preachers to England. The children in an upper grammar 
school of Berlin were asked what mountain (Berg) they had 
seen and all answered Pfeffenberg, the name of a beer-house 
near by. For all of them Berg meant a place of amusement. 
This, as Dr. Hall says, would cause an entire group of geograph- 
ical ideas to miscarry. My children had heard us talk about 
picking out (selecting) goods from a catalogue. One boy of two 
years brought me the catalogue opened to a picture of ahorse 
and asked me to "pick it out," expecting a real live horse to be 
taken out. A boy of two said: "I saw the trains unhitch." 
Another child asked a deaf person: " Are you blind in your ear ? " 
A farmer's boy of ten inquired: "Will bees sting when they are 
not sitting?" (His experience with cross sitting hens had made 
him suspicious.) Other examples illustrating essentially the 
same mental reaction are given in the chapters on imagination 
and thinking. 1 

Perception and Apperception. — From the foregoing illustra- 
tions we clearly see that it is not alone what we gain through 
sensory data that determines what we shall perceive or think. 
The mind itself contributes the essential factors which give our 
perceptions significance. Though the same outward stimuli 
may be presented to the dog and the doctor, what each really 
perceives are separated by impassable chasms. The ideas 
which each one secures through the impressions are determined 
not so much by sensory data as by previous experiences — per- 



1 Consult, also, Caroline Le Row's English As She Is Taught, Century Co. 
It is made up of actual answers written by pupils in examinations. The intro- 
duction by Mark Twain does not seem at all funny when compared with the 
pupils' answers. 



APPERCEPTION 525 

sonal or ancestral. That is, what is perceived is also apper- 
ceived. By using this term it is not intended to show that there 
is a special process which we may call apperception. It simply 
shows the resultant of all the associative forces that are con- 
tinually operative in determining our currents of thought. The 
study of association has shown that the character of previous 
experiences, their recency, habits of thought, memory, educa- 
tion, health, emotional tone, in short, one's "psycho-statical" con- 
dition, as termed by Lewes, determines these currents. Doubt- 
less the term association would be sufficient, but inasmuch as 
the term apperception is in current use with reference to the 
interrelations between mental content and new experiences, it 
will be a useful one to employ. 

Apperception is not a process that is operative only occasion- 
ally. But it is usually in striking instances that the process is 
brought to our attention. Upon reflection we at once recognize 
that we are continually interpreting new facts by means of ideas 
already in our possession. The every-day effect of feelings upon 
our thoughts is an exemplification. The world appears roseate 
to one who has slept well and dined well and upon whom fortune 
in general has recently smiled; but the sombre tints alone are 
visible to one troubled with insomnia or indigestion, or upon 
whom calamity has fallen. In interpreting all experiences which 
come to us we rely upon past experiences to give them meaning. 
A traveller in a foreign land gains from his travel largely in pro- 
portion to what he takes with him. A common seaman travels 
the world over and knows nothing of the wealth of history that 
may be revealed to one who reads history before going. The 
peasant often lives a lifetime in sight of monuments and battle- 
fields and remains unconscious of their meanings. What would 
Westminster Abbey mean to an unlettered serf ? A mere stone 
pile not different in significance from any other. His soul would 
remain unthrilled by the thought of the presence of the mortal 
remains of so many of the world's illustrious dead. To the 
student of the world's history there must come feelings of rever- 
ence and awe as he loses himself in imaginative contemplation 



526 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of that splendid phantom cavalcade which must pass before him 
in silent review. To one who comprehends, it seems, as Irving 
says, like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing 
one's self among the shades of former ages. 

Not only does the content of the mind determine our under- 
standing of all new ideas presented, but reciprocally the new 
acquisitions modify the old ideas already possessed. This proc- 
ess goes on so gradually that it is scarcely perceptible. We 
usually do not notice it until we are suddenly brought to a con- 
sciousness that we have undergone a complete revision of opinion 
upon some large question. We say to ourselves : " Is it possible 
that I ever thought that?"- "How could I have believed it?" 
Similarly our understanding of natural phenomena undergoes 
change. Our moral, religious, and political beliefs are also 
slowly but surely metamorphosed. 

Definitions. — It has readily become apparent that appercep- 
tion, so far from being a distinct process, is a part of every act of 
perception, and also enters into every higher mental process of 
learning. It comprises the whole process of evaluation and 
assimilation. When we consider that through organic memory 
the effect of each acquisition is permanent and that it enters into 
w-fold relations with all preceding acquisitions, we can easily 
understand the meaning of apperception. The most significant 
definition of apperception ever given is one from the physiolog- 
ical point of view, formulated by Titchener. He says: 1 "An 
apperception is a perception whose character is determined, 
wholly or chiefly, by the peculiar tendencies of a nervous system, 
rather than by the nature of the thing perceived." Morgan 
said of a particular apperceptive association: "Presumably 
from the physiological point of view certain cortical centres, the 
disturbances in which are associated with this particular form 
of consciousness, were already in a state of irritability or incipient 
change, and needed only a suggestive impulse to raise their 
molecular thrills into dominance." 2 

1 A Primer of Psychology, p. 88. 

2 Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 65. 



APPERCEPTION 527 

The following definitions and descriptions of apperception 
may serve to throw additional light upon the question: 

"Apperception may be roughly defined at first as the process 
of acquiring new ideas by the aid of old ideas already in the 
mind" (McMurry, General Method, p. 176). 

" Whenever by an act of attention mental data are unified into 
a related whole, this is an act of apperception" (J. Mark 
Baldwin Psychology, p. 56). 

" Every impression that comes in from without, be it a sentence 
which we hear, an object of vision, or an effluvium which assails 
our nose, no sooner enters our consciousness than it is drafted 
off in some determinate direction or other, making connection 
with the other materials already there, and finally producing 
what we call our reaction. The particular connections it strikes 
into are determined by our past experiences and the 'associa- 
tions' of the present sort of impression with them" (James, 
Talks to Teachers, p. 157)." 

"New habits tend to become assimilated to older habits. The 
result is that all new events in the conscious realm tend, in con- 
sequence of the workings of the associative process, to be assim- 
ilated in type to the conscious events which have already oc- 
curred" (Royce, Outlines of Psychology, p. 229). 

"The physician will at a glance detect in a patient symptoms 
which have escaped the anxious scrutiny of friends and relatives. 
The reason for this certainly does not lie in the greater intensity 
of his interest. He is able to note what they fail to note, because 
in his mind an apperceptive system has been organized, which 
they do not possess" (G. F. Stout, Analytic Psychology, II, p. 

113)- 

Apperception and Heredity. — Perception is not a matter of 
individual experience only, but also a resultant of hereditary 
tendencies. That a human being can accumulate so many 
experiences and such complex ones is not due to individual 
education alone, but also to instinctive impulses and inherited 
predispositions. To a lower animal and to the human infant 
the world probably is, as James says, " one big, blooming, buzz- 



528 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



ing confusion." It is either that or a dead level of monotony, 
because of the unmeaning signs which strike upon unattuned 
senses. The signs which mean so much to us fall merely as 




Fig. 34. — Is the large end 
or the small end toward 
you? 



Fig. 35. — Is the 
book open to-, 
ward you or 
away from 
you? 




Fig. 36. — Do you see the staircase 
from above or from below ? Try 
both ways. 




Fig. 37. — Six or seven cubes? 
Invert the figure. 




Fig. 38. — Rabbit or duck? 

These five equivocal figures are copied from Jastrow, " The 
Mind's Eye," Popular Science Monthly. 

sound waves upon the eye or light waves upon the ear. For 
example, a child of six months sees nothing in a drawing or a 
picture except a few blotches of color. The lines and lights 



APPERCEPTION 529 

and shades do not mean anything because of his limited experi- 
ence with them. So far as I am able to discern, dogs and other 
animals recognize nothing in a picture or a photograph. That 
the child eventually learns to interpret conventional lines as 
representing objects, while dogs do not thus learn, is a difference 
due to original potentiality, which makes training possible in 
the one case and not in the other. 

Apperception and Illusions. — Every drawing or picture that 
we see depends upon our former experiences for its interpreta- 
tion. Lines arranged in conventional ways have come through 
experience to mean certain things. A drawing or painting shows 
perspective only because we put into the representation what is 
not really there. Because of varied experiences we are able to 
see some combinations of lines and colors in different ways. If 
one looks at the accompanying drawing (Fig. 34) he can see 
either a plane figure representing two squares, one within the 
other, or the frustum of a cone. This latter may appear either 
upright or inverted. It may easily be thought of as a tunnel. 
The well-known equivocal figure of a book (Fig. 35), the stairs 
which may be seen from above or from below (Fig. 36), or the 
famous "six-seven" cubes (Fig. 37), all illustrate the same 
principle of apperception in interpreting drawings. The " rab- 
bit or duck?" figure can be seen either way (Fig. 38), but how 
it is seen first, depends much upon where the attention happens 
to centre. In the stair-case figure the reason why it is so much 
easier to see the stairs from above is not because there is any- 
thing in the lines themselves that necessitate it. The representa- 
tion is equally as good for stairs from below. The real reason 
of the mind's bias toward the other view comes from the experi- 
ences gained in the multiple number of times we have perceived 
the stairs from above compared with the scarcity of experiences 
in viewing them from below. It is even easier for us to perceive 
the stair-case than it is merely to see black lines. 

In some cases previous associations so bias the mind that it 
is impossible to perceive aright what is given through sensations. 
We then have illusions. A few examples may be cited to illustrate. 



5 3 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

(i) The first one is known as Aristotle's illusion. Cross the 
middle finger over the forefinger and place a marble or other 
spherical object between the two; the nose will do. Note the 
two marbles or noses. Why? In normal experience to touch 
the outside of the first and second fingers would necessitate two 
objects and one naturally infers whenever both are stimulated 
that it is accomplished by two objects. If you look at the 
marble the illusion will probably disappear. The eyes then 
contradict the skin. Try it by closing the eyes and having some 
one put either one thing or two things, as he chooses, between the 
fingers. The skin then triumphs over the eyes, and the illusion 
returns. (2) A string of a given length drawn slowly through 
the closed fingers of a blindfolded person seems much longer to 
him than the same string drawn through rapidly. The length 
of the string is judged by the length of time it is in contact with 
the skin. When one is blindfolded sight cannot counteract the 
perception gained through touch. (3) All are familiar with the 
illusion produced, and practically impossible to dispel, when one 
looks out of a car window at another train close against the one 
in which one is sitting. As motion is only relative, it is imma- 
terial whether we or other objects move. So long as we per- 
sonally are not producing the movement, and only the two 
objects are visible, it is impossible to decide which is stationary 
and which in motion. (4) Why does the rising full -moon 
appear so much larger on the horizon than in the zenith ? Vari- 
ous answers have been given, each one based upon the theory 
of apperception. The most satisfactory is the one which takes 
into account the relation between the distance of the object 
from the eye and the angle which it subtends. An object filling 
a given visual angle and thought to be far away is judged to be 
larger than one filling the same angle but thought to be nearer. 
This is true because objects of different sizes at a given distance 
from the eye, or a given object at varying distances produce 
retinal images of different sizes. The relations obtaining 
between these factors will be rendered clear by the accompany- 
ing diagram (Fig. 39). 



APPERCEPTION 



S3i 



Hence, in order to determine either size or distance the other 
factor must enter the judgment. Not always knowing these 
elements, the mind frequently misjudges. The judgment is 
usually subconscious but just as certainly affected. In fact, even 
though we come to know differently we cannot always remove 
the impression which has been built up from former experiences. 
(5) The sky does not seem to be the interior of a perfect hollow 
hemisphere, but appears flattened. This is because the space 
on the plane of the horizon is filled with intervening objects and 




Fig. 39. — To explain the varying appearance of the 
size of the moon in different positions in the sky. 

This figure relating to the appearance of the moon is copied from Wundt's 
Grundziige der Physiologischen Pyschologie, II, p. 201, 4th ed. 



consequently is estimated to be greater than the empty space 
between the observer and the zenith. (6) Objects look larger 
in a fog because, being dim, they seem farther away than they 
really are. In a clear atmosphere, like that of Colorado, objects 
seem nearer than they really are, and also seem smaller because 
they seem so near. The tenderfoot starts to walk to the foot- 
hills before breakfast, when the journey requires an all-day ride 
with a horse. (7) The variously estimated size of the new moon 
just appearing above the horizon is very interesting. One per- 
son will say that it is about as large as a silver dollar, another 
as large as a wash-tub, while some think it as large as the hind 
wheel of a wagon. (8) Le Conte 1 suggests the following ex- 

1 Physiology and Morphology of Animals, p. 154. 



532 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

periment to enable one to realize the relation between size and 
distance: " Look at the setting sun steadily for a moment. The 
image of the sun is branded on the retina so strongly that the 
brand remains for some time. Now, every change in the retina, 
whether it be image or shadow or brand, is seen as something in 
the field of view. With the sun-brand still on the retina, look 
where we will — on the wall, on the floor, on the sky — we see a 
spectral image of the sun. Now as to the size. Look on a 
sheet of paper two feet off; the image cast on the sheet is about 
a quarter of an inch in diameter. Look at the wall twenty feet 
off; the image is a little more than two inches in diameter. 
Look at a building one hundred feet off; the image is about ten 
inches in diameter." 

Persons congenitally blind acquire the habit of interpreting 
the qualities of external objects by means of the other senses. 
When operations are performed enabling them to see, they 
retain, frequently for a long period, the former method of apper- 
ceiving objects. Cheselden records that one youth on receiving 
vision for the first time at about twelve years of age "saw every- 
thing flat as in a picture, simply receiving the consciousness of 
the impression made upon his retina; and it was some time 
before he acquired the power of judging, by his sight of the real 
forms and distances around him." Another boy, after receiving 
his sight, on returning to his home went about the old familiar 
places shutting his eyes, though he opened them on going to 
new places. It was some time, however, before he came to rely 
upon the sense of sight for the usual knowledge. 1 Carpenter 
states another case described by Critchett in which a girl after 
being operated upon never could identify an object by sight 
alone, although she could make out its shape and color. "It 
was curious to place before her some very familiar object that 
she had never compared in this way, such as a pair of scissors. 
She would describe their shape, color, glistening metallic char- 
acter, but would fail in ascertaining what they really were, until 
she put a finger on them, when in an instant she would name 

1 Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 180. 



APPERCEPTION 533 

them, and laugh at her own stupidity, as she called it, in not 
having made them out before." 1 The reader will also recall 
the cases cited under sensory training which illustrate the same 
principles. 

It is easy to understand how hallucinations are produced in 
the minds of superstitious people, especially when in lonely 
places at night. Their minds being full of things they "might 
happen to see," the wonder is not that they see so much but 
that they do not see more. Every streak of moonlight, every 
stump, every shadow, is instantly transformed into the object 
they have in mind. Many other illustrations of illusions due to 
apperception, and easily observable, will readily occur to the 
reader. The foregoing experiments and illustrations will serve 
to call attention to the part which the mind plays through' its pre- 
perceptions and apperceptions in understanding the multitude 
of stimulations which come to us. Only those which have 
become signs and symbols through experience are of any signifi- 
cance to us. Hence, it becomes of much importance in teaching 
to recognize that the learner can only assimilate those facts for 
which the mind through its previous stock of ideas has been 
prepared. 

EDUCATIONAL SUGGESTIONS 

Proceed from Concrete to Abstract. — A study of apperception 
re-enforces the idea of the necessity of proceeding from the 
concrete to the abstract. Unless the individual elements in a 
concept are thoroughly understood, it is impossible to compre- 
hend them as a totality in their complex relations. Instead of 
beginning with definitions, abstract principles, and laws, the 
meaning of them should first be made clear. Otherwise the 
statements are mere empty words. Every concept should have 
its concrete examples to which the mind can turn for illustration 
at any time. The child mind deals with the concrete and any 
education that attempts to foist abstractions upon it will produce 

1 Op. cit., p. 189. 



534 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

but a veneering that is sure to scale off. Much that is told 
pupils is so abstract and general as to be practically meaningless. 
Unless they can form concrete images which may be used as 
measures of the thing talked about the idea is hazy and fades 
quickly. Those ideas which have been built up either through 
sense-perceptions bit by bit or through imagery in much the 
same way are the ones that persist. We constantly appeal to the 
child through our own experiences instead of through his. We 
expect him to comprehend the complex abstractions and the 
conventionalities of which we speak to him in an almost unknown 
tongue. Christ as a teacher was far wiser. Notice how he 
selected his illustrations from the every-day life of his hearers. 
Though a carpenter himself, he never used illustrations from 
that occupation, but he recalled his hearers' experiences as 
shepherds, as husbandmen, as fishermen, etc. Illustrations 
leading up to great truths were always selected from experiences 
near at hand. He recalled the sparrow, the foxes, the lilies of 
the field, the seed-time and harvest, the sower who went forth to 
sow, the manna in the wilderness, the widow's mite, the Phari- 
see, and the publican — objects with which they were all familiar. 
Should we not begin our instruction of children with experi- 
ences personally familiar to the particular children taught, and 
make the teaching radiate from those? The point of contact 
for the city child is of one kind and for the country child another. 
Imagine the city child struggling with the verse, "The Lord is 
my shepherd, I shall not want." The metaphor suggests 
imagery entirely foreign to him. Canon Tristam relates that 
while in missionary work in Ceylon he was once "addressing, 
through an interpreter, a large congregation of native Christians, 
and, unfortunately, chose the subject of the Good Shepherd. 
My interpreter told me afterward that not one of my hearers 
had ever seen a sheep, or knew what it was. 'How, then, did 
you explain what I said?' I asked. 'Oh!' he replied, 'I turned 
it into a buffalo that had lost its calf, and went into the jungle 
to find it.' This interpreter probably knew nothing of the 
science of teaching, and yet he had an instinctive sense of the 



APPERCEPTION 535 

principle of the point of contact on the plane of experience." * 
Children appropriate words so easily that they frequently deceive 
others into thinking they possess real knowledge when they have 
absolutely no comprehension of what they are talking about. 
Dr. Dewey says: "While I was visiting in the city of Moline a 
few years ago, the superintendent told me they found many 
children every year who were surprised to learn that the Missis- 
sippi River in the text-book had anything to do with the stream 
of water flowing past their homes." 

Inventory the Pupil's Knowledge. — A study of apperception 
presses the conclusion that before attempting to impart new 
instruction a careful inventory of the mind should be made. 
This is true not only for a new year, or a new term, but also 
for each day and before each lesson unit is presented. This 
is the object of an examination for entrance to a new class, a 
higher grade, or a new school. It is necessary to know whether 
the pupils are prepared for the new instruction to be given. 
Although this is usually done in a general way, it would be ad- 
vantageous if much more attention were given to determining 
the mental attitude of every class which an instructor meets for 
the first time. This is true whether in the kindergarten or 
the university. It is the height of pedagogic absurdity for a 
teacher to start lecturing and continue lecturing for weeks and 
months without affording an opportunity for the listeners to 
disclose their fitness for listening. The search for the condi- 
tion of the learners need not be formal, but some sufficient op- 
portunity for reaction individually and collectively should be 
afforded. 

Individual Differences. — In the primary grades a large pro- 
portion of the time should be devoted to studying the exact 
status of each individual in the class. In every group of forty 
first-grade pupils entering in September there are ordinarily 
ten per cent, who do not need to remain in that grade a month. 
Another twenty-five per cent, could be promoted or at least 
should be separated from the rest by the middle of the year. 

1 Du Bois, The Point of Contact in Teaching, p. 91. 



536 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

children's ignorance of common things 



NAME OF OBJECT OF CONCEPTION 



Beehive 

Crow 

Ant 

Squirrel 

Robin 

Sparrow . . . . 

Sheep 

Bee 

Frog 

Pig 

Chicken 

Worm 

Butterfly 

Hen 

Cow 

Growing wheat 

Elm 

Oak 

Pine 

Maple 

Growing moss . . . 

" strawberries 

" clover . . 

" beans . . 

" corn . . . 

" potatoes 

" apples . . 

" dandelion 
Knows: 

Right and left hand . 

Cheek 

Forehead . . . . 

Throat 

Knee 

Stomach . . . 

Season 

Seen: 

Dew 

Hail 

Rainbow . . . . 

Sunrise 

Sunset 

Clouds 



PER CENT. OF CHILDREN IGNORANT OF IT 



IN BOSTON 



80.0 
77.0 

65-5 
63.O 
60.5 

57-5 
54-o 
52.0 
50.0 
47-5 
33-5 
22.0 
20.5 
19.0 
18.5 
9 2 -5 
9i-5 
87.0 
87.0 
83.0 
81.5 

78.5 
74.0 

7i-5 
65-5 
61.0 
21.0 
52.0 

21-5 

18.0 
15.0 

i3-5 
7.0 
6.0 

75-5 

78.0 

73-o 
65.0 

56.5 
53-5 
35-° 



IN KANSAS CITY 



59-4 
47-3 
2i-5 
15.0 
30.6 

3-5 
7-3 
2.7 

i-7 

°-5 

•5 

•5 

.1 

5-2 
23-4 
52.4 
62.2 
65.6 
31.2 

3°-7 
26.5 



1.0 

•5 

•5 

1.1 

1.6 

27.2 

31.8 

39- ! 
13.6 
10.3 
16.6 

19-5 
7-3 



66.0 

59-° 

19.1 

4.2 

10.6 



4.2 



66.0 
89.8 
58.6 
87.2 
80.8 

42.5 
1.1 



45-9 
56.1 

70.2 

18.1 

2.1 



APPERCEPTION 537 

children's ignorance of common things 



NAME OF OBJECT OF CONCEPTION 



Moon . . . 

Stars . . . . 
Conception oj: 

Island . . . 

Beach . . . 

Woods . . . 

River . . . . 

Pond . . . . 

Hill . . . . 

Brook . . . 

Triangle . . 

Square . . . 

Circle . . . 

Five . . . . 

Four . . . . 

Three . . . 
Seen at work: 

Watchmaker . 

Bricklayer . . 

Shoemaker . . 
Seen: 

File . . . . 

Plough . . . 

Spade . . . . 

Hoe ... . 

Axe . . . . 
Knows by name: 

Green . . . 

Yellow . . . 

Blue . . . . 

Red ... . 
Origin oj: 

Leather . . . 

Cotton Goods . 

Flour . . . 

Bricks . . . 

Woolen Goods 

Butter . . . 

Meat . . . . 

Milk . . . . 
Knows: 

Shape of world 



PER CENT. OF CHILDREN IGNORANT OF IT 



IN BOSTON 



7.0 
I4.0 

87-5 

55-o 

53-5 
48.0 
40.0 
28.0 
15.0 
92.0 
56.0 

35 -o 

28.5 

17.0 

8.0 

68.0 

44-5 
25.0 

65.0 

64-5 
62.0 
61.0 

12.0 

iS-o 

i3-5 

14.0 

9.0 

93-4 
90.0 
89.0 
81. 1 
69.0 

5°-5 
48.0 
20.5 

7°-3 



IN KANSAS CITY 



26.O 

3-° 



50.8 

35-7 
34-7 
33- 1 
55-o 
6.7 

8-3 
4.0 

46.0 



53-o 



30.1 


49-7 


IO.I 


2.1 


8.7 




20.8 


36.1 


139 


8-5 


7-3 


i5-° 


S-o 


10.6 


18.4 


53-° 



47.0 



538 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Another group will need special attention and will not be ready 
to go on even at the end of the year. But how often the Septem- 
ber consignment is bunched together, once for all, labelled, put 
through the same process, pressed, pushed, pulled, ground, and 
stretched, until they appear uniform, and are ready to be ticketed 
and passed on to the next grade or department. Thus they 
stay together except as death or disgust separates them. No fact 
of modern psychology is more important than that there are 
countless individual differences which must be recognized in all 
good teaching. These differences must be sought and individ- 
uals ministered to accordingly. 

In 1869 an investigation was carried on in the schools of 
Berlin to discover the individuality of children entering the city 
schools. It was believed that the varying environment of the 
different children would be reflected in the differing ideas of the 
children. The investigators were, however, not prepared for 
the striking differences which appeared in the returns. They 
found that many were ignorant of the commonest objects in 
their environment, while others manifested knowledge far supe- 
rior to anything anticipated. This investigation has indirectly 
stimulated a great many others of a similar nature. The classic 
among studies in this line is the one undertaken by Dr. G. 
Stanley Hall in 1880, in the primary schools of Boston. He had 
the co-operation of Superintendent Seaver and the painstaking 
assistance of four trained kindergartners. These trained women 
were employed by the hour to question the children in groups of 
three. This individual method enabled them to test ideas in a 
great variety of ways. By this means they eliminated the inac- 
curacies which might easily arise from a lack of words or through 
a confusion of terminology. Precautions were taken to avoid 
schools where the children came from homes representing ex- 
tremes of either culture or ignorance. Statistics were secured 
from about 200 children. In 1883, shortly after Dr. Hall's 
study was published, Superintendent Greenwood, of Kansas 
City, tested with a part of Dr. Hall's questions 678 children 
from the lowest primary class in that city. Of the children 



APPERCEPTION 539 

tested, 47 were colored. Because of the great importance which 
these studies have assumed extended quotations are made from 
the tables and from Dr. Hall's comments. 1 

Dr. Hall says that from the foregoing tables "it seems not too 
much to infer: (1) That there is next to nothing of pedagogic 
value the knowledge of which it is safe to assume at the outset 
of school-life. Hence the need of objects and the danger of 
books and word cram. Hence many of the best primary teach- 
ers in Germany spend from two to four or even six months in 
talking of objects and drawing them before any beginning of 
what we till lately have regarded as primary-school work. (2) 
The best preparation parents can give their children for good 
school-training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, 
especially with the sights and sounds of the country, and send 
them to good and hygienic, as distinct from the most fashionable, 
kindergartens. (3) Every teacher on starting with a new class 
or in a new locality, to make sure that his efforts along some 
lines are not utterly lost, should undertake to explore carefully 
section by section the children's minds with all the tact and 
ingenuity he can command and acquire, to determine exactly 
what is already shown; and every normal-school pupil should 
undertake work of the same kind as an essential part of his 
training. (4) The concepts which are most common in the 
children of a given locality are the earliest to be acquired, while 
the rarer ones are later." 

It should not be understood that the tables are to be regarded 
as supplying averages which will measure the knowledge that 
all children of corresponding ages ought to possess. The facts 
contained in the table are designed to show, first, how poorly 
children frequently understand terms that are used in their 
earliest instruction; second, that it is absolutely necessary to 
ascertain what the child has as capital before beginning to 
instruct him in new things; third, to show what great differences 
there are among children surrounded by different conditions. 

1 "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School," Pedagogical 
Seminary, I : 139-173. 



540 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The differences shown for children in different cities are typical 
of the differences that could easily be found among individual 
children in the same community or even in the same family. 
Though environed by the same conditions, different children 
appropriate or assimilate them differently. The individual 
child must be studied and ministered unto. A study of the 
apperceptive contents of various minds reveals the necessity of 
emphasizing individual psychology in education much more 
than has been done. 

Apperception and Reading. — One main reason why pupils 
often fail to appreciate literature is that they are given material 
which relates to ideas which they never have experienced. Dur- 
ing childhood and youth they are frequently assigned literature 
dealing with adult philosophy. The whole periods of childhood 
and youth are thus slurred over and the instincts of those pe- 
riods sinned against by not offering them more material suitable 
for the nourishment of immature minds. To indicate what is 
suitable for each age is difficult and we have but begun to make 
a scientific selection and adaptation. In fact it is doubtful 
whether much good literature for childhood has been written. 
Serious attempts are being made to produce books on history, 
biography, travel, and science that will interest, instruct, and 
arouse pupils of different ages, but from a recent extended ex- 
amination of hundreds of books submitted by various publishing 
houses in competition for a place in a State school library list, I 
am led to believe that there are published tons of undesirable 
material to pounds of suitable material. 

Robinson Crusoe, certain selections from Robert Louis Ste- 
venson and Eugene Field, special selections from the Bible, and 
some fairy stories and folk-lore appeal to children because the 
language and the meaning are both simple enough to be inter- 
preted through childish experiences. But even many selections 
from Field and Stevenson, though using children as characters, 
deal with a philosophy of life so profound that children get no 
inkling of meaning from them. They deal with children as seen 
by adults and not as children see themselves. Miss Alcott and 



APPERCEPTION 541 

some others have been singularly happy in appealing to children 
by revealing childhood without being childish. It is very doubt- 
ful whether many fairy stories appeal to children so much 
because understood as because they possess a weird fascination. 
The horrible in literature may fascinate the child as a snake may 
fascinate a bird. But the interest may be painful. The san- 
guinary fairy story may hold the child much as murder recitals 
and other sensational stuff in the daily papers fascinate the multi- 
tudes. To say that therefore they are the best, however, is an 
unwarranted conclusion. 

The adolescent period with its own peculiar instincts blossom- 
ing out furnishes an apperceptive background which must be 
comprehended and heeded else all literary instruction furnished 
will miscarry. A wealth of hitherto dormant impulses, emo- 
tional and intellectual, now furnish both a motive for unexplain- 
able activities and also that attitude which causes them to 
vibrate in sympathetic unison with the ideals represented in cer- 
tain types of literature. Apperception masses, as before inti- 
mated, are not only individual acquisitions, but racial. The 
suddenly widened interests caused by newly developed instincts 
and enlarged experience necessitate a wide range and variety of 
literature. To name all kinds demanded at that time is unnec- 
essary and impossible. A few suggestions may be of some 
service. Dr. Hall writes: 1 "On entering the high school the 
average child has essentially passed the stage of juvenile read- 
ing. Animal, detective, wildly romantic, and outlaw themes are 
on the wane, but there is a rapid rise of the curve of normal 
interest in travel, biography, exploration, adventure, literature 
with abundant action, perhaps dramatic, but always somewhat 
exciting and adventurous. Every census, now scores in all, 
shows that in the early teens there is for the average child some- 
thing of a reading craze, as if now for the first time the mind took 
flight in the world of books. ... It is, however, the reading of 
the prospector and not of the miner, the age of skipping and 
sampling and pressing the keys lightly, until something absorb- 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, 9 : 99. 



542 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ing is found that feeds the soul. Girls, who always read most 
poetry, not only like most that boys do, but exceed them in 
preference for books by women authors, which boys eschew, 
also in those which centre in domestic life and with children in 
them." Chubb says: 1 "The quickly budding instincts . . . 
must get a chance to deploy themselves and reveal their signifi- 
cance. ... In our choice of literature we must accommodate 
ourselves to certain marked changes that overtake the boy and 
girl during the four years of high-school life. For instance, it 
ought to meet and form and exalt the nascent sex-consciousness 
by literature that touches nobly and simply the theme of roman- 
tic love, and presents healthy and formative types of manhood 
and womanhood. It ought to provide food and outlet for the 
religious and ethical instincts that mature during what is pre- 
eminently the period of 'conversions,' as the psychologists tell 
us. It ought to feed that feeling for Nature which one statis- 
tician records as the most universal of the emotions of youth. 
And it ought to cater mildly to those sudden, and also generally 
short-lived, 'crazes' for different forms of art, music, acting, 
etc., which are manifestations of a quickened sensitiveness to 
beauty." 

Besides the racial apperceptions in the form of instincts and 
impulses, there are innumerable personal peculiarities which 
should be taken into account. Individual acquisitions are as 
varied as the number of individuals. Considering heredity and 
environment as determinants in producing a given type of mind 
we see that the number of permutations is endless. Hence the 
necessity of studying each individual in order at least to discover 
and minister to some of his more important needs. The stock 
of ideas of the country boy will differ radically from that of the 
denizen of the city. In many cases, of course, an adequate ap- 
perceptive basis for the study of a given selection could be built 
up by proper preparation. It would be a safe rule that no selec- 
tion should be studied unless the pupils had an experimental basis 
for apperception, or by proper preparation might secure such. 

1 The Teaching of English, p. 242. 



APPERCEPTION 543 

Baker observes 1 that "If, as has been asserted, the power to 
form the picture is the condition of enjoyment of the scene, we 
must take account of the stock of memories which the pupils 
have and out of which they are to make the new picture. Ob- 
viously there are wide differences in their mental outfits. The 
observant country boy would need no help to see Whittier's 
Barefoot Boy or Bryant's Waterfowl except the stimulating 
questions of the teacher. But the ocean to an untravelled 
inland boy, or the scenes of Snow Bound to a Southern boy, 
would be very vague. So the wild mountain scenery of Scott, 
or the masterpieces of art, or the scenes of conflict involving 
long-past customs and accoutrements, may lose much of their 
vividness for lack of a background of appropriate memories. 
It is here that the importance of illustrative material appears." 
Bullock concluded from an investigation 2 that war stories seem 
popular with third-grade boys, and that liking seems well marked 
through the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Stories of advent- 
ure are popular all through the heroic period, reaching their 
maximum in the eighth and ninth grades. The liking for biog- 
raphy and travel or exploration grows gradually to a climax in 
the ninth grade, and remains well up through the course. The 
tender sentiment has little charm for the average grade boy, and 
only in the high-school course does he acknowledge any consid- 
erable use of love stories. In the sixth grade he is fond of detec- 
tive stories, but they lose their charm for him as he grows older. 
For girls, stories of adventure are popular in the sixth grade, and 
stories of travel are always enjoyed. " The girl likes biography, 
but in the high school, true to her sex, she prefers stories of great 
women rather than great men," but, according to Hall, because 
she cannot get them reads those of men. Kirkpatrick says: 3 
"The fact that boys read about twice as much history and travel 
as girls and only about two-thirds as much poetry and stories 
shows beyond question that the emotional and intellectual wants 

1 The Teaching of English, p. 170. 

2 Some Observations on Children's Reading, Proc. N. E. A., 1897, p. 1015. 

3 Northwestern Monthly, 9 : 229. 



544 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of boys and girls are essentially different before sexual maturity." ' 
Dr. Hall deprecates the fact that the English teaching of the 
present apotheosizes form, stresses philological ramifications and 
syntactical relations, and gives such a barren waste of literary 
content. Adolescents need above all a wide field of virile litera- 
ture to secure for them the deepest self-revelation. 

Apperception and Geography. — The absolute necessity of inter- 
preting that which is new, strange, and foreign in terms of 
familiar, well-digested ideas suggests definitely the psychological 
order of procedure in teaching geography. Although the ulti- 
mate aim in teaching geography should be to awaken an interest 
in and an understanding of that which is beyond the sweep of 
the physical eye, yet children will ever see through a glass darkly 
unless that which is to be constructed in imagery has first been 
made possible through experience. Moreover a desire to part 
the curtain which veils the unknown must be developed out of 
some personal interest. Otherwise everything is learned in a 
purely perfunctory way. Interest is absolutely dependent on 
apperceptive knowledge. A white heat of interest is never 
kindled for anything except through a mind brimfull of com- 
bustible ideas connected with it. 

Geography like charity must begin at home. The Germans 
have developed home geography teaching in a way that should 
be emulated everywhere. It is no unusual sight to see a teacher 
conducting a class of thirty or forty pupils on a half-day's excur- 
sion. The whole troop generally have their knapsacks contain- 
ing luncheon and note-books. They go to places of historical 
and geographical interest, they see objects of natural science, 
etc. The teacher explains; the pupils question, make notes and 
drawings, gather specimens, and in every way gain first-hand 
impressions of the vicinity. These lessons form the basis for 
further discussions, recitations, and language lessons. They are 
supplemented by additional talks, collateral readings, and are 
stored away as the genuine basis from which new knowledge 

1 See Hall's Adolescence, II, p. 475, et seq., for further quotations and observa- 
tions. 



APPERCEPTION 545 

radiates. Each lesson is preceded by a careful preparation for 
what they are to see. This prevents desultoriness. Frequently 
older boys of a school are taken by a teacher upon excursions 
lasting a week. 

Apperception in History and Civics. — Historical teaching to 
be well done must similarly consider the laws of apperception. 
A chronological order would dictate commencing at the begin- 
ning of things and tracing events in an orderly time-sequence. 
A logical or philosophical order would necessitate a considera- 
tion of causes and effects. But logical and chronological 
sequences are frequently unpsychological from the teaching 
stand-point. The child's ability to comprehend and his interest 
are the only safe guides. The latter is, as previously noted, 
largely conditioned by the former. Especially in the ' earlier 
stages of the course the pupil must be given such facts of history 
as can be comprehended and as inspire interest in historical 
study. The order of the books matters little. What boots it if 
we present the story of Alexander the Great to-day, George 
Washington to-morrow, and Napoleon the next day, or whether 
the order be reversed, provided the above conditions have been 
observed? There will come a time in later historical study 
when the chronological and institutional order will need to be 
followed if the student is to be versed in systematic history. 
But in the beginning the child is unprepared for it. Logically 
and chronologically the child in the elementary school should 
begin with ancient history. But how absurd to attempt to 
teach it that way. The Russo-Japanese war, the freeing of 
Cuba and the Philippines are much better psychological starting 
points. The blowing up of the Maine and Hobson's spectacu- 
lar heroism are much more apt to stir the emotions and be 
studied carefully by present-day American boys than are the 
bravery of Leonidas at the Pass of Thermopylae or the Pelo- 
ponnesian Wars. 

Not a few grammar-school boys and girls possess as compre- 
hensive and accurate knowledge of the history-making events of 
the day as do their elders. The occurrences come so close to 



546 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

them in time and interest that they study them as a matter of 
course. This suggests the correct method of beginning history. 
Those events which have a local and a personal relation are the 
ones to choose first. Deeper causes of these will be desired 
eventually and when some of the effects are known there will be 
interest in causes. This may seem illogical, but effects always 
lend interest to causes. The recent San Francisco and Messina 
disasters stimulated more interest in causes of earthquakes than 
had been manifested in many a day. Before studying the his- 
torical town-meeting in New England, why not develop a back- 
ground of interest and understanding by becoming acquainted 
with the town-meeting as exemplified on every hand ? There is 
little doubt that we are annually disgusting thousands of boys 
and girls with history by attempting to make it ultra-systematic 
and philosophic. Let us grant that our own civic and social 
life and its evolution cannot be completely understood without 
knowing its relation to English and Continental history. But 
we are over-zealous to make boys and girls interested in the 
evolution of things they do not even know. The first problem 
is to give them an insight into that life, knowing that they may 
then become interested in its origins. Too often they are plunged 
into ancient history details which to them are isolated and de- 
void of meaning. Even the names repel by their strangeness. 
A large fund of information must be acquired, just because it is 
interesting, before we attempt to systematize it. This stock of 
ideas will form an apperceiving mass for the systematic relations 
which we trust they will be led to perceive. But hyper-system 
without basal facts is infinitely worse than a jumble of facts 
unorganized. 

The study of civic, economic, and social conditions must like- 
wise be begun in a thoroughly concrete way. Instead of starting 
with books and forcing undigested theories and formulas upon 
minds inexperienced in observing social relations, the teacher 
should skilfully lead his pupils to observe the workings of the 
facts and forces about them. Every community offers a rich 
variety for study. All the social, economic, and civic relations 



APPERCEPTION 547 

may be studied objectively and should be so studied before the 
abstract book theories are studied. Too often pupils can recite 
verbatim the United States Constitution and answer (frequently 
incorrectly) some unusual question in constitutional law, but are 
entirely innocent of any real knowledge of the government of the 
municipality or the township in which they reside. They do not 
know the phases of government represented or the functions 
assumed. They do not perhaps know of the existence, much 
less the manner of organizing, primaries and caucuses. They do 
not know the sources of support for their public schools, post- 
offices, streets, water-works, etc. By studying the actual work- 
ings of the several public agencies and utilities in the concrete 
they can build up a background of experience which will enable 
them to understand theoretical discussions and abstract- prin- 
ciples. 

Adolescent expansion and groping of the mind suggest the 
necessity of this very method. Here and there we discern a 
recognition of this concreteness and the necessity for building 
up an experimental apperception mass. Professor Thurston, 
for years an instructor in the Hyde Park high school, Chicago, 
has long "earnestly believed that a beginner in economics had a 
right to find the subject closely related to his own experience, and 
that of his neighbors, so that he would seem to himself to be 
studying the industrial life of actual men and women more than 
books about this industrial life." 1 The same plan is applicable 
to the study of civics in a wider sense. By any other method 
than the gathering of concrete experiental facts preliminary to 
theories, pupils gain only dry, meaningless abstractions; they 
have only prattlings about civic duties and relations, and know 
nothing of the real concerns of actual life as it pulsates and throbs 
about them. 

Opportunity for Application of Knowledge. — Knowledge to 
be made useful must be applied. It is frequently indefinite until 
it has been applied to new and concrete situations. One is not 
master of a mathematical principle until he has tested it in a 

1 Economics and Industrial History for Secondary Schools, p. 7. 



548 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

specific case. The engineer who cannot put his theories into 
practice has only partially learned his lessons. The physician 
who does not know how to prescribe in individual cases would 
not be counted either learned or skilful. Skill is at once seen 
to be a part of knowledge. In fact complete accuracy is lacking 
until some skill is acquired in the use of facts. Hence knowledge 
to become of greatest apperceptive value must become of con- 
stant use so that its relations instantly come into view when 
needed. An interpreter away on a vacation would be of little 
use to one in a critical situation. Similarly knowledge which 
might be of use could it only be marshalled, but so vague that it 
requires an hour's hunt to bring it into requisition is of small 
value. We are constantly saying: "Of course, I might have 
known, but it didn't occur to me!" Facts which were in pos- 
session should have been of use in evaluating the new condition, 
but they had not become habitual accompaniments of our 
thinking. The man with usable knowledge is the man of 
power. 

Apperception and Interest. — One of the most fundamental 
factors in the development of interest in any given thing is a 
stock of ideas which enables the mind to go out to meet the in- 
coming stimuli. Interest is an attitude of the mind toward 
definite objects of thought. It is impossible to have a deep and 
abiding interest in anything about which absolutely nothing is 
known. Sometimes the attention is momentarily arrested by 
utterly strange things; but unless we can find out something 
about it the curiosity wanes. Miners frequently dig out thou- 
sands of fossil remains of small animals and occasionally those 
of mastodon proportions. Their attention is diverted momenta- 
rily because of the unlikeness to the coal or other deposits, but 
after the most trivial observation they are consigned to the 
dumps. How differently would the geologist behave! 

Parkman, in describing the Indians of Fort Laramie, gives an 
excellent illustration showing that interest is developed only 
through knowledge. He says that the Indians "were bent on 
inspecting everything in the room; our equipments and our 



APPERCEPTION 549 

dress alike underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary 
has been carelessly asserted, few beings have more curiosity 
than Indians in regard to subjects within their ordinary range 
of thought. As to other matters, indeed, they seemed utterly 
indifferent. They will not trouble themselves to inquire into 
what they cannot comprehend, but are quite contented to place 
their hands over their mouths in token of wonder, and exclaim 
that it is 'great medicine!' With this comprehensive solution 
an Indian is never at a loss. He never launches forth into 
speculation and conjecture; his reason moves in its beaten 
track. His soul is dormant; and no exertion of the mis- 
sionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the Old World or of the New, 
has as yet availed to rouse it." x When the Fiji Islanders first 
beheld some foreign merchantmen they viewed them with su- 
perstitious awe, but with no curiosity. But when some of the 
small boats were lowered they instantly became alive with 
interest. Similarly, some Eskimos, we are told, on being taken 
to London to view the sights and receive a great treat were 
interested in nothing, but were filled with disgust, which was 
overcome only when they accidentally came upon some boats 
and fishing tackle that resembled products of their own manu- 
facture. 2 

James says: "The great maxim in pedagogy is to knit every 
new piece of knowledge on to a pre-existing curiosity — i. e., to 
assimilate its matter in some way to what is already known." 
He illustrates the advantage of comparing the unknown with the 
personal experience of the pupil by the following example drawn 
from Lange's Apperception. "If the teacher is to explain the 
distance of the sun from the earth, let him ask ... 'If anyone 
there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what should 
you do?' 'Get out of the way,' would be the answer. 'No 
need of that,' the teacher might reply. ' You may quietly go to 
sleep in your room, and get up again, you may wait till your con- 

1 California and Oregon Trail, chap. IX. 

2 The relation between interest and apperception is more fully discussed in the 
chapter on Interest. 



550 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

firmation-day, you may learn a trade, and grow as old as I am — 
then only will the cannon-ball be getting near, then you may 
jump to one side! See, so great as that is the sun's distance!' " l 
Frank G. Carpenter, in his delightful Geographical Reader on 
North America, 2 has given a splendid example of teaching by 
appealing to the child's "apperceptive mass" in building up a 
new concept. Writing of the great corn crop raised in the seven 
States of the corn belt, he says: "This is the greatest corn patch 
on the globe. It produces more than one billion bushels of corn 
every year, or more than one-half of our crop. Now let us think 
for a moment how much corn one billion bushels is. Suppose 
we load it upon wagons. Forty bushels of shelled corn forms a 
good load for two horses. Let each wagon hold that amount, 
and let the teams start at the Mississippi River and go eastward. 
We shall drive the teams so that the nose of each horse will just 
reach the tailboard of the wagon in front of it, making a con- 
tinuous train of wagons, each loaded with forty bushels of corn. 
Now, where would the first wagon be when the last bushel was 
loaded ? At Pittsburg, on the edge of the Alleghany Mountains ? 
No; it would be much farther eastward. At the Atlantic 
Ocean? No; still farther eastward. Suppose that the wagons 
could be driven across the oceans, and guess again. It might 
perhaps reach almost to Paris, do I hear some one say? Yes; 
it would reach, on and on, much farther than that. The line of 
wagons would extend from the Mississippi over our own country 
to the Atlantic Ocean, across the Atlantic to Europe, across 
Europe and over the highlands of Asia, and then across the wide 
Pacific Ocean. It would not stop there, but would climb over 
the plateaus and peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and come back 
to you at the Mississippi River, making a solid belt of corn- 
wagons clear round the world. But stop! we have not yet 
loaded all of the corn crop of these seven States. The pile 
seems almost as big as when we began. There are five times as 
much corn left as that we have put on the wagons, and we should 

1 James, Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 328. 

2 Pp. 161-163. 



APPERCEPTION 551 

have to make six such lines around the world before we could 
load a single year's crop of this great corn patch. It would take 
so many wagons, indeed, that if they were stretched out in one 
single file, the first wagon would be more than one hundred and 
fifty thousand miles away before the last wagon was loaded. 
And yet these seven States contain only about one-half of the 
corn we produce, and you must multiply the number of wagons 
by two if you wish to know how many would be needed to carry 
one year's corn crop of the whole United States." 

Apperception and Arrangement of Curriculum. — The applica- 
tion of knowledge is peculiarly dependent upon the arrangement 
of the course of study. The course should be so arranged that 
each topic in each subject may be naturally retraced — of course, 
from a different point of view. This procedure, termed the 
spiral plan, is largely observed in the German schools. They 
aim to have every subject before the mind of the pupil for a great 
many years. Instead of taking algebra, for example, for a year 
and finishing it, the subject is begun at about eleven years of age 
and carried until eighteen or twenty. The same is true of 
geometry. Trigonometry is begun at about fourteen and carried 
four or five years. History is pursued two hours a week for six 
or eight years instead of five hours a week for a couple of years. 
From personal inspection I know that the final resultant is much 
better than in our schools. By the German plan pupils are 
enabled to begin the elementary consideration of so-called sec- 
ondary school subjects at an early age, reserving the more diffi- 
cult portions until their minds are ready to grasp them. Easy 
algebraic processes are taken before difficult arithmetical prob- 
lems; the introduction to geometry is made early and its results 
utilized in later arithmetical problems. Logarithms are studied 
at thirteen and the tables used constantly. Thus a habit is 
formed and the process remembered in such a way as to be 
serviceable. When the study of logarithms and trigonometry is 
deferred until the college course the knowledge of them goes 
into disuse soon after acquirement. I know this to be true 
from a wide census taken in college classes. 



552 -PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Contrary to some unfounded suppositions, interest is not sac- 
rificed by the spiral plan. Each time that ground is recrossed 
it is with a different purpose. For example, in elementary his- 
tory the facts should be studied for their interest as facts. Later 
the same facts should be studied with a view to securing a more 
orderly sequence, and later from the institutional or philosoph- 
ical point of view. In literature the reading of all of Dickens's 
works simply because they fascinate is a very profitable occupa- 
tion, but the attitude is entirely different from that manifested 
in literary criticism. The former consideration should be the 
antecedent of the latter. 

Apperception and Correlation. — Careful correlation of work in 
the curriculum is a great means of economy and an aid to the 
clearer understanding of each of the subjects. It is quite usual 
for subjects to be so taught that each one appears entirely unre- 
lated to all the others. Herbart wrote: "I cannot refrain from 
wondering what sort of a process is being worked out in the 
heads of schoolboys who, in a single forenoon, are driven through 
a series of heterogeneous lessons, each one of which, on the fol- 
lowing day, at the regular tap of the bell, is repeated and con- 
tinued. Is it expected that these boys will bring into relation 
with one another and with the thoughts of the playground the 
different threads of thought there spun? There are educators 
and teachers who, with marvellous confidence, presuppose Just 
this, and in consequence trouble themselves no further." 

While the greatest value of Latin to the ordinary student 
should be its enrichment of the number and content of English 
words, yet from wide observation I know that many pupils get 
little appreciation of its relation to English. This is especially 
true where the Roman pronunciation is followed. Where gram- 
mar and ability to translate are the centre and circumference of 
Latin teaching, the value for English in the ordinary high-school 
course is relatively very small. Geography and history are sel- 
dom correlated as they should be. English is too often relegated 
to a special formal exercise and entirely neglected in all other 
subjects. While it should be the chief subject for many years, 



APPERCEPTION 553 

two-thirds of the time given to it should be in connection with 
other subjects. Practically every composition should grow natu- 
rally out of the work in history, geography, reading, science, 
etc. 'There is seldom necessity for a "class in composition," 
unless it may be for criticism of the work submitted in connec- 
tion with other subjects. Furthermore, all language forms 
learned in the separate language class must be re-enforced and 
drilled upon in all the other classes. It is absurd to expect that 
the language class can cure all the ills of incorrect speech if the 
faults are passed over unnoticed in the other work. 

In the presentation of successive topics in a subject and in the 
several subjects in the curriculum constant effort should be made 
to have each new thing related to other acquisitions. It is only 
in this way that knowledge becomes permanent and vital. There 
is no necessity for hunting a subject which is to become a "cen- 
tre of correlation." Any idea which is worth while to acquire 
should become a centre of correlation. The mind itself is the 
true centre of correlation. The teacher should study the learn- 
er's mind to know what is there and then seek to relate all new 
additions to the pre-existing complex. One great objection 
against specialists in elementary and high schools is that each 
one is ignorant of all that the others do. This need not be so. 

In attempting to correlate the child's experiences the home 
activities should not be overlooked. The bulk of the child's best 
and most significant experiences are secured at home. Most of 
his concrete ideas of geography, plant and animal life, geological 
phenomena, physical, chemical, and meteorological laws, have 
been gained outside the school. The formal study of these 
subjects should draw heavily upon those experiences, both for 
the purpose of enlarging those ideas and giving them significance 
and for the purpose of using them in the acquisition of the new. 
"The branches of learning taught to the child by the school- 
master are necessarily dry and juiceless if they are not thus 
brought into relation with the child's world of experience. 
Almost all of the school reforms that have been proposed in the 
past one hundred years have moved in this line. The effort to 



554 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

seize upon the child's interest and make it the agency for prog- 
ress has formed the essential feature in each." ' 

Concrete ideas of conduct and morality are almost wholly 
extra-school acquisitions. Hence the importance of interpreting 
these and giving the best ideals to be carried in turn into the 
life outside the school-room. Were the great object-lessons in 
conduct as exemplified in the great world about the child what 
they should be, there would be little difficulty in impressing the 
highest ideals on children. The entire process of education 
should be so interwoven that each part derives new meaning 
from all the others. Furthermore all formal processes of edu- 
cation should be so ultimately related to life and character that 
each factor may contribute to the best development of the ideal 
character. No item should enter into education which cannot 
find intimate relation with the life and character of the particu- 
lar individual. The more intimately the learner can feel the 
educative processes entering into and contributing to his interest 
the more educative the processes are. 

Not only is proper correlation necessary if mental economy is 
to be secured, but it has become a practical necessity in the ad- 
ministration of present-day curricula. With the enlarged range 
of human activities there has arisen a great multiplication of 
subjects, all of which have a legitimate claim for a place in the 
school-room. If proper correlation of subjects is made and 
unnecessary details which bear no relation to present-day life 
interests are omitted there need be no complaint about the over- 
loading of school courses. The great trouble has been that it 
has been thought that all the new subjects must be introduced 
and at the same time all the old ones superstitiously retained. 
In arithmetic, for example, items of knowledge which were of 
practical value two hundred years ago in the business methods 
of the time are still required of boys in school. English gram- 
mar is largely made up of relics of Latin grammar, useful enough 
in connection with Latin, but of no earthly use in learning prac- 
tical English. Geography is frequently a pedagogical sausage 

1 W. T. Harris, Preface to Uncle Robert's Geography. 



APPERCEPTION 555 

composed of scraps of useless information of uncertain relia- 
bility. With proper correlation and elimination there will be 
sufficient room for every desirable subject and adequate time 
for its proper acquisition and assimilation. 1 

Reviews. — Some writers advise calling up as many related 
ideas as possible, but this would lead to endless detail and repeti- 
tion. Only those ideas which are requisite to a full and ready 
comprehension of the new ideas are necessary or desirable. 
For example, in teaching addition of compound numbers the 
only processes which need conscious recall are those related to 
the decimal notation. The whole subject of integral addition, 
subtraction, division, etc., might be called up, but it would only 
lead away from the principle in hand. Reviews of the right 
sort are made imperative if the laws of apperception are heeded. 
The real review is more than repetition. Simple repetition is 
needed, of course, in purely mechanical processes like writing, 
spelling, dancing, gaining skill in multiplying, and adding. But 
in all exercises requiring serious thought the review should be 
a re-view, a re-seeing from a different stand-point. Conducted 
in this way new views are gained, and no review is worthy 
the name that does not give new insight and new associa- 
tions. Reviews thus enlarge concepts and add to the com- 
prehension of the topic. The review should be the period of 
most rapid advance as well as the time of most conscious illu- 
mination. 

As was shown in discussing memory, the best method of insur- 
ing permanence of mental possessions is to bind them together 
with as many bonds of association as possible. The greater the 
number of associations the more opportunities for grasping new 
relations. The Herbartians have set forth the necessity of recog- 
nizing five fundamental steps in the acquisition and assimilation 
of all knowledge. They are (1) preparation, (2) presentation, 
(3) assimilation, (4) generalization, (5) application. Without 
assuming a formal recognition of these in every lesson, we must 

1 For an excellent article upon desirable elimination, see F. M. McMurry, 
Educational Review, 27 : 478-493 (1904). 



556 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

recognize them as the general natural mental movements in the 
acquisition of every lesson unit. 

This preparation consists in part in recalling to the mind those 
facts and principles which are so related to the new material as 
to be absolutely indispensable to its ready comprehension and 
assimilation. Oftentimes new processes are stumbled over in a 
blind way when a little attention to reviewing previously-learned 
related ideas would make the whole matter a delight. This is 
especially true in mathematics where each step depends so abso- 
lutely upon preceding processes. In the transformation of trigo- 
nometric equations how necessary that the whole previous sub- 
structure flash into the mind in order to proceed intelligently. 
The same is true in studying a foreign language. Not only 
should the prerequisite facts and principles be comprehended, 
but they should be so mastered that they are instantly applicable 
in new relations. Weeks of precious time are wasted every 
year in most schools because fundamental processes of thought 
and expression have not become convertible into elements of 
new processes. The multiplication table, the addition table, the 
subtraction table, various fractional equivalences, the spelling 
of words, the mechanics of reading, etc., must be so learned that 
the results are always available. The teacher who tells a child 
to think hard when he is asked to give the answers to such ex- 
pressions as 7 X 9, 8 + 7, 63 -r- 7, etc., is not doing good teach- 
ing. The child must not stop to think. The process must have 
become automatic. Likewise the meanings of words repre- 
senting fundamental concepts must be made not only compre- 
hensible but usable. 

Apperception vs. Formal Discipline. — It is frequently said that 
it makes little difference what a pupil studies so long as he does 
steady, hard work. The discipline coming from the work is the 
all-important thing. The fact of the apperceptive growth of the 
mind entirely disproves this. McMurry has made a most im- 
portant observation with reference to the value of previous 
knowledge and against the disciplinary theory of study. 1 He 

1 Elements of General Method, p. 280. 



APPERCEPTION 557 

observes that "If knowledge once acquired is so valuable, we 
are, first of all, urged to make the acquisition permanent. 
Thorough mastery and frequent reviews are necessary to make 
knowledge stick. Careless and superficial study is injurious. 
It is sometimes carelessly remarked by those who are supposed 
to be wise in educational doctrine, that it makes no difference 
how much we forget, if we only have proper drill and training to 
study. But viewed in the light of apperception, acquired knowl- 
edge should be retained and used, for it unlocks the door to more 
knowledge. Thorough mastery and retention of the elements of 
knowledge in the different branches is the only solid road to 
progress. In this connection we can see the importance of learn- 
ing only what is worth remembering, what will prove a valuable 
treasure in future study. In the selection of materials for school 
studies, therefore, we must keep in mind knowledge which, as 
Comenius says, is of solid utility. Knowledge which is thus 
useful is in itself a strong element of power, because it is a direct 
means of interpreting and mastering the world. Much of the 
knowledge gained in schools for mere disciplinary purposes, is 
not, in the apperceptive sense, a source of power. It may be, 
indeed, mere pedantry and pretence, and even self-deception. 
The doctrine of apperception has laid the axe to the root of that 
ancient tree known as pure formal discipline." 

Apperception and Sympathy. — The main reason why people 
are so unsympathetic with each other is that they do not under- 
stand each other's point of view. It is a difficult thing to put 
ourselves in the other fellow's place and to view the world from 
his elevation and with his glasses. Whenever we are asked to 
consider a question we at once mount our own observatory and 
turn our own glasses upon it. The labor question involving 
strikes and lockouts is very largely one of differences in under- 
standing the problem of the other party concerned. Religious 
and political dissensions and intolerance are the result of bias 
produced by life-long instruction in some particular dogma. 
Could extended vision be afforded to the contending parties the 
differences would usually disappear. 



558 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

It is an important function of education to establish a bond 
of sympathy between the child and the rest of the world. This 
it can accomplish only by putting the child in touch with the 
world. He must not only know the world of to-day, but he 
must also know it historically. This does not imply political 
history alone, but all that may be included in the development 
of civilization. Under modern urban conditions the child is apt 
to grow up wholly unacquainted with the fundamentals of 
industrial and commercial life. By this I mean that he sees 
practically nothing of raw materials and takes no part in the 
elemental processes of production, manufacturing, and distribu- 
tion. He has knowledge of finished products only. From the 
time he rises in the morning until he is locked in slumber every- 
thing is furnished him "ready made." Is it any wonder that 
such a one on becoming an employer later in life has no sym- 
pathy with the man who ploughs the soil, the man who stokes 
the furnace, or the man who digs the coal from the bowels of 
the earth? 

One of the great virtues in the education of earlier days lay 
in what was gained outside the school in the every-day duties 
of the farm and the household. All the various industrial and 
social occupations centred about the household life. Practi- 
cally every article for food, clothing, and building was a home 
product. Animals grown on the farm or secured in the hunt, 
vegetables from the garden, cereals from the fields, berries from 
the wood, sugar from the maple-tree, furnished practically the 
entire supply of food. These were all prepared by members of 
the household. There were no cold-storage plants and refrig- 
erator cars securing for every day in the year the freshest prod- 
ucts of the remotest corners of the earth. Clothing was largely 
of home manufacture. The boys learned to shear the sheep 
which they raised, they carded the wool, and their sisters were 
adepts in spinning, weaving, and fashioning it into garments. 
Even the shoes they wore were frequently home-made from the 
hides which they tanned when they slaughtered the animals for 
the winter's supply of beef. To illuminate their houses, instead 



APPERCEPTION 559 

of pressing a button, they made the tallow-dip from the animal 
fat which they had tried out and with wicks of their own manu- 
facture. They carried out the processes of manufacture of 
dwellings, buildings, implements, vehicles, and furniture from 
the felling of the forest trees and sawing of the lumber, to the 
fine cabinet and joinery work and painting. Even the iron and 
steel work was frequently done by means of the farm black- 
smith shop. Such work as could not be accomplished on the 
farm was made possible in the village shop or mill which was 
never closed for fear of revealing trade secrets. 

Dr. Dewey says 1 that "in all this there was continual train- 
ing of observation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of 
logical thought, and of the sense of reality acquired through 
first-hand contact with actualities. The educative forces -of the 
domestic spinning and weaving, of the saw-mill, the grist-mill, 
the cooper-shop, and the blacksmith forge were continuously 
operative." Through this definite knowledge of a wide range 
of activities largely gained by participation in them a wholesome 
sympathy for those engaged in all sorts of labor was engendered. 
Those boys and girls gained a thorough appreciation of the 
efforts that must be put forth to master environment and cause 
it to minister to human needs. They developed an appreciation 
of the labor that must ever be the price of civilization. In our 
specialized society so many of the fundamental processes of 
producing and transforming the raw materials are hidden from 
the view of the modern, especially the city, youth that they nat- 
urally infer that all they ever need to do is to sit idly by, press 
a button, and order whatever takes their fancy. They gain no 
adequate idea of duty or responsibility, and can have no real 
appreciation of historical forces. The best history lesson a boy 
could possibly have would be to plough for a season in a stumpy, 
stony field. Educators are coming to realize the educational im- 
portance of participation in the handicrafts and household arts, 
and they are introducing manual training and domestic science 
to help offset some of the disadvantages of civilization. It will 

1 The School and Society, p. 24. 



560 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mean much if we can only stem the tide now going cityward and 
direct it backward toward the simpler rural life where children 
and youth can advantageously spend more of their days. 

Apperception Suggests Teacher's Preparation. — A solemn duty 
is incumbent upon every teacher to make the most careful and 
minute preparation for each day's teaching. What the pupil 
has as capital to build upon must be determined. Likewise just 
what is to be taught must be minutely planned. To have once 
or even many times made preparation for former classes is not 
sufficient. The former preparation should, of course, render it 
unnecessary to spend as much time in getting ready. Frequently 
a given day's lesson is a failure, not because of lack of general 
preparation, but because the proper illustrations, apparatus, 
and devices were lacking or were not selected for that class, and 
for that day. Knowledge must, of course, be always on tap, 
but it is absolutely necessary to learn the gauge of the particu- 
lar glasses to be filled. Knowledge imparted must ever be fresh, 
interesting, and presented as if the teacher were wholly absorbed 
in it himself. It must be genuinely fascinating to the teacher 
if he is to incite contagious zealousness. This attitude can only 
be evidenced by the teacher if he approaches the subject as a 
learner. There is nothing that will so stimulate pupils to be- 
come scholarly as to be in the continuous companionship of 
teachers who are growing in scholarship. On the other hand 
there is nothing that will kill out scholarly ambitions in young 
minds so much as to be with teachers who are mere echoists. 
"The unskilled teacher forces instruction upon the child and is 
angry or disheartened when he finds no intelligent response, 
although he never considered the previous question, whether the 
child already possesses the mental organ for apprehending the 
facts or ideas which are thrust upon him. The main principle 
which psychology lends to the theory of education as its starting- 
point is the need that all communication of new knowledge 
should be a development of previous knowledge. If the apper- 
ceptive system necessary for incorporating a new fact or idea 
does not exist, it must first be evolved before teaching can be 






APPERCEPTION 561 

successful. It would seem that Socrates has the credit of being 
the first to insist on this point." 1 

Breadth and accuracy of scholarship besides professional train- 
ing are absolutely essential to success. Even the "born teacher" 
must secure these or frequently be indictable for gross malad- 
ministration in office. It is a grand endowment to possess those 
qualities we ascribe to the born teacher — vivacity, quick insight, 
geniality, patience, justice, attractive personality, transparent 
honesty and uprightness, leadership, and all the others that could 
be mentioned; but without scholarship and professional training 
even the one superlatively blessed is unprepared for the high 
office of teacher — the grandiloquent platform orator to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. Even with ample scholarship added, a 
great handicap remains and unpardonable blunders are inevi- 
table unless the teacher begins under the wisest supervision. 
The trained teacher knows what instruction has preceded in the 
courses and what is to follow; he recognizes the varying stages 
of mental development and what will best minister to them; 
he is conversant with other subjects than his own, has studied 
out their relationships and thereby has gained perspective; 
he knows the laws for promoting the best mental action, and 
considers the demands which society will place upon the 
child. 

Superintendent Cooley, of Chicago, said: "I think that the 
lower grade in the high school needs teachers who can teach the 
pupils as well as the subjects. . . . More teachers are trying to 
bring university methods into the high school than there are 
making such mistakes in the grades below." Superintendent 
Soldan, of St. Louis, said in the same discussion: "The very 
first step in the readjustment of the high school is to show at least 
one book by high-school teachers that embodies the high-school 
method. It is strange that the books for the common-school 
teachers are without equivalents in the high schools. Let them 
follow the example of the common-school teachers in mastering 
the subjects and also in mastering the pedagogics of the subjects. 

'Stout, Analytic Psychology, II, p. 137. 



/ 



562 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 




The pupils enter the highjBchool as children. Their work 
in the first year, and often in ihe second year, is done after the 
ways of children, but by the time they leave the high schools 

ey are adults in, many respects. That important transition 
[roiri childrroTJc£,to adolescence has not been considered, so far as 
I know, by a^ny^hign~sjshQpi teacher. The course of study should 
■be^aj^ysled acGOf^ing to the'* r p^qfcgk}ks of wise pedagogics. . . . 
The common-school "teacher has gSrsBjfc^nd the mere knowl- 
edge of the subject he is to teach; hw|jJ$%one to the thoughtful 
consideration of how these subjects sJuouM be taught to have 
the fullest educational influence over the children under his 
control." ' 

The whole work of the trained teacher contributes to the de- 
velopment of the pupil through utilizing all the means and 
instruments available. While the untrained teacher may by 
happy fortune contribute to one phase of development by using 
limited means, his efforts are liable to miscarry entirely because 
of untimeliness or bad methods, or he may warp the mind be- 
cause of undue emphasis of the subject which he represents. 
Superintendent Cooley has said that the first-year class in the 
high school is the worst taught class in the whole system of 
schools. This, he says, is true because of the inexperience of 
the teachers, who are largely just out of college. They teach 
as they have been taught by methods well enough adapted to 
colleges, but entirely out of place in the high school. They 
exalt the subject and lose sight of the learners. They magnify 
their particular subject all out of proportion to its rights. It is 
well known that in colleges, and in high schools where the depart- 
ment system prevails, each instructor is apt to assign enough to 
occupy the whole time of the student. This is not an indictment 
of the college, but of the system which permits the employment 
of teachers without professional training. But most important 
of^all, how can we expect immature, untrained teachers to assist 
muck : in developing in pupils a keen sense of duty and responsi- 
bility toward society when the teachers have had such limited 
!* l Proc. N, E. A., 1903, p. 184. 










APPERCEPTION 563 

contact with it themselves ? The teachers should have become 
broad-minded through varied contact with society and should 
be keenly alive to the best means of fostering the highest ideals 
in the youth. 




^^ 



<■ f 



$£k 






CHAPTER XXI 

MOTOR EXPRESSION IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 

Expression an Index to Mind. — The only means we have of 
studying the mind of another is through his various expressions. 
Mind discloses itself to others only by expression as in talking, 
writing, drawing, painting, constructing machines or controlling 
them, etc. Efficiency of mind is judged wholly by the outward 
expression revealed to the view of the world. A student's 
knowledge of mathematics or psychology must be judged by 
what he says or writes; one's knowledge of art by what he can 
produce. We do not really know whether another can sing or 
play the piano until he manifests it in expression. A poetic 
soul is unknown until it bursts into song; an author's ability to 
write may properly be challenged until he gives an actual 
demonstration. Similarly an engineer must exhibit his skill, 
an architect his plan, a general his generalship, a statesman his 
statecraft, in some objective results. In fact, we know nothing 
of the perceptions, memories, emotions, reasonings, choosings, 
willings, hopes, joys, and sorrows, of others except as they give 
expression to them through some muscular activity. Another 
may love us ever so tenderly or hate us ever so bitterly, but unless 
we detect some of his outward expressions of it we are entirely 
oblivious of the fact. To illustrate, a man is angry. How do 
others know it? Solely by his expression. He may clench his 
fist, knit his brows, gnash his teeth, raise his arm to strike, utter 
an oath in a major key, if he believes himself stronger than his 
foe; if inferior he may whisper in impotent rage and skulk away 
because incapable of defence or retaliation. Another angry 
man might express himself in a more indirect, but not less 
effective manner by calling the police, waylaying his enemy, 

5 6 4 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 565 

going to war, writing articles of denunciation which would bring 
social reprobation upon his enemy, or waging a war of ballots 
which would express indignation and tend to secure retribution 
and reform. The enemy might be an individual or a violation 
of principle. Again, consider the various manifestations of fear. 
The child may run with breathless haste, eyes dilated, tears 
streaming, heart palpitating, face flushed, or it may be blanched 
and palsied. A mother immersed in grief over the loss of her 
loved little ones may be hysterical, or speak with voice trem- 
bling, quivering lips, have a pallid countenance, and be depressed 
almost to complete paralysis. In any case, the emotions are 
expressed in some form of action, sometimes decidedly external ; 
in others more internal, repressed, and perhaps much diffused, 
but the only means we have of understanding them is through 
some form of motor expression. 

Dr. Warner, a noted London physician, has written an entire 
volume on Physical Expression, which is of exceeding interest. 
The following quotation is to the point in connection with the 
foregoing thesis: "In the adult the objective criteria of mind 
are modes of expression; the expressions of the emotions, feel- 
ings, passions, thoughts are indications of the mind; and all 
these modes of expression have been shown to be produced by 
direct action of the nervous system. It is, then, admitted that 
conditions of the mind are directly expressed by nerve-muscular 
signs. This implies that some material, physical change occurs 
along with 'mentation,' which material change is expressed in 
the muscles of the body. It is this inherent physical change, 
thus directly expressed, which the physiologist investigates in 
his studies of mind." 1 

James says: 2 "The brain, so far as we understand it, is given 
us for practical behavior. Every current that runs into it from 
skin or eye or ear runs out again into muscles, glands, or viscera, 
and helps to adapt the animal to the environment from which the 
current came. It therefore generalizes and simplifies our view 
to treat the brain life and the mental life as having one funda- 

1 Physical Expression, p. 252. 2 Talks to Teachers, p. 26. 



566 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mental kind of purpose." He says that even the "inessential, 
'unpractical' activities are themselves far more connected with 
our behavior and our adaptation to the environment than at 
first sight might appear. No truth, however abstract, is ever 
perceived, that will not probably at some time influence our 
earthly action. You must remember that, when I talk of action 
here, I mean action in the widest sense. I mean speech, I mean 
writing, I mean yeses and noes, and tendencies 'from' things 
and tendencies 'toward' things, and emotional determinations; 
and I mean them in the future as well as in the immediate 
present. As I talk here, and you listen, it might seem as if no 
action followed. You might call it a purely theoretic process, 
with no practical result. But it must have a practical result. 
It cannot take place at all and leave your conduct unaffected. 
If not to-day, then on some far future day, you will answer some 
question differently by reason of what you are thinking now. 
Some of you will be led by my words into new veins of inquiry, 
into reading special books. These will develop your opinion, 
whether for or against. That opinion will in turn be expressed, 
will receive criticism from others in your environment, and will 
affect your standing in their eyes. We cannot escape our 
destiny, which is practical; and even our most theoretic faculties 
contribute to its working out." 

Motor Activity in Relation to Health or Disease. — An abun- 
dance of well-controlled movements, as exhibited in play or 
interesting work, are a sure sign of healthfulness — physical and 
mental. On the other hand an excess of unco-ordinated move- 
ments is a sure symptom of disease. We should always be sus- 
picious of twitchings of the eye or facial muscles, unsteadiness 
of the body, head, hand, Or fingers, or of stammering and stutter- 
ing. Likewise we should study closely the child who drums 
incessantly with the fingers or the feet, who is restless, constantly 
changing position to no purpose, rolling the eyeballs, or droop- 
ing the head; whose arms hang limp by the side, who drags 
his feet and stumbles; who cannot throw a ball, run, trundle a 
hoop, etc. Such a child is either fatigued, has not slept suffi- 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 567 

ciently, or is ill-nourished. Children are often excitable, pas- 
sionate, melancholy, and fretful. During sleep such children 
are seldom in repose; they grind the teeth, are troubled by 
incessant twitching of the muscles, are disturbed by dreams, 
frequently have night-terrors, and sometimes are troubled with 
somnambulism. A child in perfect health is also full of move- 
ment, but the actions are controlled. He runs about from dawn 
till dark, plays, capers, chatters, laughs, and is constantly giving 
natural expression to states of mind and body. A child who is 
ill or excessively fatigued does not frisk about, ceases play, mopes 
or curls up in a corner and talks little, laughs less, or is quiet 
until normal conditions are restored. A normal, healthy child 
is not quiet a single moment of his waking life. Some people 
call children lazy, but it is a false indictment. I doubt if a nor- 
mal child has a lazy fibre in his being. Sometimes children do 
not respond in directions which we mark out for them, but this 
may be because of excess of activity in more enticing directions. 
Inhibition. — Inhibition is really a form of activity although it 
does not issue in movement but in the stoppage of movement. 
The child who learns to sit still in school at proper times, to 
check the impulses to laugh, to whistle, to talk, and to shout is 
exhibiting action — controlled action. Similarly the one who 
refrains from saying malicious things about neighbors who may 
deserve it, who spreads the mantle of charity over real faults of 
others, who keeps his hand from his neighbor's pocket, who is 
faithful to a trust confided to him, is manifesting activity no less 
genuine and real than if he had acted upon all possible impulses 
of the moment. The child in training has to learn to master a 
multitude of impulses to forbidden actions. Naturally he would 
like to whisper, run and look out of the window, or play with his 
marbles, but a set of developed, warring impulses restrains him. 
The child is continually beset with stimuli which allure him from 
the tasks which we set him. Until he has developed a great 
many habits of acting and doing the chances are that the momen- 
tary stimuli will succeed in bringing about corresponding reac- 
tions, and the things we desire him to do are forgotten. Hence 



568 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the necessity of constant supervision of the child if we wish him 
to succeed in resisting undesirable stimuli and establishing ap- 
propriate reactions to the stimuli which we select for his training. 
If we can only make the desired stimuli as interesting as the 
undesirable, alluring ones we may secure spontaneous responses. 

The Purpose of Motor Activity in Education. — The child's 
nervous system is ready to respond to a great variety of stimuli 
with equal readiness. One of the most important tasks of the 
teacher is to select desirable stimuli and keep them beating upon 
the child until settled pathways of discharge have been estab- 
lished, and at the same time to shield him from undesirable envi- 
ronment. With age, developed habits of action, and fixity instead 
of plasticity there is much less possibility of being influenced by 
new forces. Here is an opportunity of education. A child can 
learn a new movement, say skating, much more readily than 
the adult because the child's nervous system is so sensitive to 
many stimuli, while the adult has become impervious to all that 
do not fit in with his modes of action. Education deals largely 
with the problem of producing modifications of the mind. As 
the mind and its modifications can only be known through exter- 
nal expression, it becomes highly important to consider how 
ideas are correlated with expression and how stimuli may be 
utilized to produce efficient reactions and how in turn reactions 
may influence intellectual processes. Unfortunately the formal- 
ists have overlooked the necessities and importance of expression 
in education and have devoted all their attention to the absorp- 
tive process. 

It is an auspicious sign that present-day educators are seeking 
earnestly for ways and means of incorporating into the formal 
curriculum more and more work which involves motor activity. 
We are beginning to realize that efficient education is not a 
process of cramming words into the child's memory. Ideas are 
incomplete until they are real-ized. The most distinctive feat- 
ure of many ideas is this motor process. Most ideas are of 
little consequence until they find application in some form of 
outward expression or influence some activity, at least indirectly. 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 569 

"We learn by doing" is a trite statement, but only half under- 
stood by many, and heeded in practice by still fewer. However, 
the slogan, "From impression to expression," is becoming an 
important watch-word of modern teaching. It needs to be sup- 
plemented by the statement, "Through expression to clear im- 
pression." But it is only just beginning to be realized that 
the subject of motor education demands special consideration. 
Even many of the advocates of motor training have in mind only 
the skill resulting from handiwork. The stock arguments made 
in favor of manual activities are somewhat as follows: "Manual 
training, handicrafts, and domestic science furnish activities 
which reveal inaccuracies of execution; they give opportunity to 
make finished products; they furnish physical exercise; they 
develop an appreciation of the dignity of labor; they enable the 
child to follow his interests, etc." These are all valid, but they 
do not touch the most fundamental reasons. 

In a previous section the meaning of ideo-motor action was 
discussed. That every mental process has a motor accompani- 
ment is a singular and significant fact. Experiments go to show 
that with every slightest thought delicate recording apparatus 
attached to the body may reveal changes in thought through the 
changes in the tracings made by the apparatus. Even our 
aesthetic, emotional states in contemplating a work of art proba- 
bly excite muscular adjustments which would be revealed if 
properly adjusted instruments could be applied to the body. 
Muscular adjustments are so closely interwoven with all mental 
activities that we are justified in saying that they are a part of 
the entire process which could not come to full fruition without 
them. Our ideas of space have been gained by muscular meas- 
urements and when we think of space we cannot dissociate the 
muscular correlates from the totality of the idea-process. What 
would be our idea of skating without the various muscular 
accompaniments? A lecture on skating, even illustrated with 
pictorial representations, or, still better, with demonstrations of 
the process would never give one a real idea of skating. Simi- 
larly lectures on penmanship and drawing unaccompanied by 



570 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

muscular co-ordinations on the part of the child himself would 
never teach him how to write. The only way to learn to write, 
is to write; to learn how to saw boards, is to saw boards, etc. 

Mosso strikingly emphasized the idea of the intimate relation 
between motor and mental phenomena and the biological im- 
portance of motor training for mental development in his ad- 
dress, "Psychic Processes and Muscular Exercises." * He said: 
" Since neither chemically nor by the use of the strongest micro- 
scopes can we demonstrate differences in the nerve-cells of the 
cerebral cortex, it is therefore probable that none such exist. 
Hence, I believe that the psychic functions cannot be separated 
from the motor, that rather the psychic phenomenon and that 
which imparts the movement impulse both have their seat in the 
same cell. ... If the so-called motor region of the brain is 
destroyed, it is found that a change of sensibility also takes place. 
These facts suffice to show that, up to the present, no absolute 
local separation of movement and sensibility is demonstrable." 
In another connection he states that there is in reality no dis- 
tinction between motor and sensory cells. 

Because of this very intimate relation between mind and 
muscles, Professor Mosso regards a knowledge of this subject 
of supreme importance for pedagogy. Motor nerve fibres are 
complete earlier than sensory. Muscular exercise he considers 
as better suited than sensory stimuli to develop the myelin 
sheaths (indicating maturity) of the nerves. Through a series 
of ingeniously contrived experiments, he demonstrated with 
absolute certainty the intimate and delicately adjusted relation- 
ship between the organs controlled by the sympathetic system 
and psychic states. Sir Crichton Browne wrote that " swaddling- 
bands so applied at birth as to restrain all muscular movements, 
and kept on during infancy and childhood would result in idiocy 
— a speculation to which the wretched muscular development 
of most idiots and imbeciles, and the fact that their mental 
training is most successfully begun and carried on through mus- 
cular lessons, gives some countenance." 

1 Clark University Decennial Volume, 1899. 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 571 

Motor Development and Racial Intelligence. — Mosso believes 
that long continued motor activity among a people is promotive 
of intellectual development. In support of this view he says 
that "during the first epoch of the Renaissance, the greatest 
artists of Florence were all apprentices in the workshops of the 
goldsmiths. Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo 
Brunelleschi, Francia, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botti- 
celli, Andrea del Sarto — to mention only a few examples — per- 
formed, during their apprenticeship, the simplest labors in the 
workshop of a goldsmith. But the exercise with which they 
gained their manual dexterity surely influenced also the develop- 
ment of their genius. In the beginning of the sixteenth century 
this school ended, but from the pedagogical stand-point it is still 
worth studying. If I may be permitted to express an opinion, 
I would say that the manual dexterity favored by this labor con- 
tributed much to the development of the great masters of genius. 

"A fact which cannot be doubted is the many-sidedness of 
genius which some Italians of the Renaissance possessed, and 
which has never again appeared with like copiousness. Giotto 
was painter, sculptor, and architect. Leonardo da Vinci was a 
celebrated musician, a great painter, an engineer, an architect, 
a man of letters and of science. Andrea del Verrocchio was a 
goldsmith, sculptor, engraver, architect, painter, and musician. 
These facts are to be read in many histories of art. An incom- 
parable example, however, is Michelangelo. For twelve years 
he studied anatomy on the cadaver, and afterwards painted the 
Sixtine Chapel and executed the tombs of the Medici and the 
dome of St. Peter's. ... I am convinced that muscular move- 
ments have formed the omnipotence of genius, just as vice versa, 
intellectual exercises affect advantageously the development of 
the muscles. ... If the Greeks excelled all other peoples in 
genius, it was because they paid more attention than did the 
others to bodily exercise; they brought gymnastics, the study 
of bodily positions and bodily exercise, to a height which has 
never been reached by other peoples since their day." * 

1 Op. cit., pp. 387-388. 



572 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The motor zone is the largest specialized portion of the human 
brain. Its exercise results in toning up the entire brain as well 
as in developing this particular zone. If abundant motor activ- 
ity is lacking during the growing period the entire brain and 
nervous system suffer. Activities like play and manual work 
are absolutely fundamental to complete and symmetrical devel- 
opment. It would be better for the child under ten to be out 
of school kicking out the toes of his shoes than sitting in a hot, 
stuffy school-room and precociously conning his printed, intel- 
lectual lessons. There is time enough for the intellectual for- 
malism later on if a proper physical substructure has been 
built up. 

President Hall says 1 that " muscles are in a most intimate and 
peculiar sense the organs of the will. They have built all the 
roads, cities, and machines in the world, written all the books, 
spoken all the words, and, in fact, done everything that man has 
accomplished with matter. If they are undeveloped or grow 
relaxed and flabby, the dreadful chasm between good intentions 
and their execution is liable to appear and widen. Character 
might be in a sense defined as a plexus of motor habits. To 
call conduct three-fourths of life, with Matthew Arnold; to 
describe man as one-third intellect and two-thirds will, with 
Schopenhauer; to urge that man is what he does or that he is 
the sum of his movements, with F. W. Robertson; that char- 
acter is simply muscle habits, with Maudsley; that history is 
consciously willed movements . . .; or that we could form no 
conception of force or energy in the world but for our own mus- 
cular effort; to hold that most thought involves change of 
muscle tension as more or less integral to it — all this shows how 
we have modified the antique Ciceronian conception vivere est 
cogitari, to vivere est velle, and gives us a new sense of the impor- 
tance of muscular development and regimen." 

Motor Training More than Manual Training. — When motor 
education is mentioned manual training is first thought of, but 
there are many other activities that involve motor co-ordination, 

1 Adolescence, I, p. 131. 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 573 

and all mental processes necessitate motor activities to make 
them clear. Let us note a few illustrations. Our ideas of a 
pound, or an ounce, would indeed be vague if we had never 
gained personal experimental evidence through lifting those 
weights. Our notions of space relations are all primarily built 
up from muscular experiences. The infant's notions of distance 
are vague until his muscular experiences render them precise 
and clear. In fact, it is doubtful if the child has any notions of 
distance antecedent to his experiences in measuring and testing. 
His Teachings and travels and eye-movements all contribute to 
his knowledge of space. Retinal images alone could reveal 
little. Eye movements must supplement and even contribute 
most of the data. It is no fiction to say that children grasp for 
the moon. Why should they not do so? Before muscular 
experiences disclose the real meanings, a foot is not different 
visually from a rod, or a mile. I have even seen children seven 
months old reach for the moon. Both two-dimensional and 
three-dimensional space are realized only through explorations 
accomplished by muscular movements. 

Some Fundamental Motor Concepts. — As the child learns the 
use of its arms, accomplishes the art of creeping, and the still 
more complex art of walking, his conceptions of space grow 
wonderfully. A child not allowed to creep or to walk is being 
deprived of a most fundamental birthright. Like all individ- 
uals who never travel he remains provincial. These principles 
should receive abundant application in every-day education and 
in school-room practice. When pupils are learning the tables 
of denominate numbers, instead of going through mere word 
mouthings they should be required to lift weights, and measure 
distances, areas, and volumes. An inch, a foot, a yard, a mile, 
an acre, a cubic foot, a cord, should come to stand for definitely 
imaged realities. A boy who has sawed wood will not forget 
what a cord is, nor will one who has walked miles, and around 
and over acres be dependent upon verbal memories for his 
knowledge of these units. If pupils are studying the table of 
wood measure they should actually measure piles of wood. My 



574 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

own knowledge of a cord of wood was made exceedingly tangible 
and vivid. Days and weeks at the wood-pile and in the forest 
chopping cordwood supplemented by loading and hauling the 
wood to market over rough roads gave me such a personal 
knowledge of every element in the problem that the ideas will 
be mine as long as time shall permit my brain and muscles to 
function. Not every boy, and still less every girl, has need of 
making wood measure so clear, real, and vivid, but the method 
of real learning therein illustrated is applicable to every subject. 
All ideas studied should be gained, as far as possible, through 
actual experience. The more nearly the experience grows out 
of life's activities and interests, the better. 

If an idea of "sixteen ounces makes one pound" is to be 
gained, the only real way is primarily by lifting or "hefting" and 
secondarily by seeing the relations. A knowledge of an inch, 
a rod, a mile, an acre, etc., can only be gained by actual personal 
measurement. I once visited a high-school class which was 
studying the United States system of land survey. They were 
talking glibly about acres, sections, and square miles. Sus- 
pecting that their knowledge consisted of mere words, I asked: 
"How long would it take you to walk around a section of land?" 
"Fifteen minutes," was the instant reply of one pupil. My 
belief was confirmed and I replied: "You must be a sprinter." 
The farmer boy's knowledge of acres is gained by following the 
plough up and down the furrows, day after day, fencing in an 
acre, ten acres, or fifty acres, mowing the hay, cradling the grain, 
binding the sheaves, even by grubbing out the trees and clearing 
the land. Of course, acres are not the only concepts worth while 
knowing. It is quite probable that we might go through life 
ignorant of the concepts and be highly respected and intelligent, 
but we should have other concepts which are exactly as definite 
as the farmer boy's of acres, rods, and sections. The exam- 
ple illustrates the end and the means to be employed in gaining 
any kind of real knowledge. 

The task of education has been considered too largely as one 
of instructing the child so that he may know about things. But 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 575 

a great part of a child's education should be concerned with 
teaching him to do things, to put into execution ideas understood, 
sometimes even to utilize ideas and processes which are vaguely 
or not at all understood. It is highly important that the child 
be able to stand well, to run easily, to sit properly, to breathe 
correctly, to sleep adequately and under hygienic conditions, to 
move gracefully, to close doors quietly, to avoid awkwardness, 
to be at ease in company. He cannot claim to be properly 
educated without having developed the habit of careful attention 
to health and personal appearance; unless he habitually ob- 
serves good manners, habitually manifests politeness and all 
other signs of good breeding; nor without regularly using the 
mother tongue easily, accurately, pleasantly, and forcefully. 
Along with these should be thoroughly acquired the habits of 
right moral responses and a cheerful, happy, altruistic attitude 
toward life's activities in general. All these come only after 
much practice, and they are imperfect until they become largely 
automatic. They must have become, not second nature, but 
primary nature. Along with his play the child should have the 
"work habit" thoroughly ingrained, and much of this work 
should be manual. Manual training in the schools and foot- 
ball and gymnasium exercises should supplement the motor 
training afforded by useful occupations and not supplant it. 

Motor Activities in the Home. — Every boy and every girl 
should have definite home duties demanding muscular exercise 
and skill. The boy can mow the lawn, split the wood and carry 
it in, tend the furnace, make boxes and shelves, mend the 
fences, run errands, wash dishes, sweep, dust, make beds, etc. 
His sister should be equally interested in gardening, dish- 
washing, and in addition should be able to cook a meal, cut and 
fit a garment, or saw a board and drive a nail without danger to 
her fingers or to bystanders. Every home should have its gar- 
den and its tool-chest. Both boys and girls should have an 
intelligent interest in them derived through active acquaintance. 
"Into the education of the great majority of children there 
enters as an important part their contribution to the daily labor 



576 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of the household and the farm, or, at least, of the household. It 
is one of the serious consequences of the rapid concentration of 
population into cities and large towns, and of the minute division 
of labor which characterizes modern industries, that this whole- 
some part of education is less easily secured than it used to be 
when the greater part of the population was engaged in agri- 
culture. Organized education must, therefore, supply in urban 
communities a good part of the manual and moral training which 
the co-operation of children in the work of father and mother 
affords in agricultural communities. Hence the great impor- 
tance in any urban population of facilities for training children 
to accurate hand-work, and for teaching them patience, fore- 
thought, and good judgment in productive labor." 1 

Hall maintains that "adolescent girls, especially in the middle 
classes, in upper grammar and high school grades, during the 
golden age for nascent muscular development, suffer perhaps 
most of all in this respect. Grave as are the evils of child labor, 
I believe far more pubescents in this country now suffer from too 
little than from too much physical exercise, while most who 
suffer from work do so because it is too uniform, one-sided, 
accessory, or under unwholesome conditions, and not because it 
is excessive in amount. Modern industry has thus largely 
ceased to be a means of physical development and needs to be 
offset by compensating modes of activity. Many labor-saving 
devices increase neural strain, so that one of the problems of our 
time is how to preserve and restore nerve energy. Under present 
industrial systems this must grow worse and not better in the 
future. Healthy natural industries will be less and less open 
to the young. This is the new situation that now confronts 
those concerned for motor education, if they would only make 
good what is lost." 2 

The Laboratory. — Not only do our modern laboratory methods 
furnish sensory experiences but also opportunities for motor ac- 
companiments. Whole classes of ideas would be vague and 

1 Charles W. Eliot, Educational Reform, p. 405. 

2 Adolescence, I, p. 168. 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 577 

incomplete without the knowledge furnished through the motor 
activities. The laboratory is not only a place for observing 
things but also a place for doing and making, a place for labor — 
a "labor-atory." The engineering student is obliged to make 
models, and to construct apparatus and machines. He is con- 
tinually engaged in making, mapping, and charting, and where 
actual constructive representation is not possible or feasible, 
plans are drawn to scale, and in manifold ways either primarily 
or secondarily the muscles are employed in gaining, vivifying, 
and fixing ideas of realities. The modern medical student em- 
ploys eye, ear, touch, and every sort of motor experience possible. 
Not only must he see and touch, but he must train himself to 
delicacy of measurement in locating various portions of the 
anatomy. Touch is not of the highest use when passive. Active 
touch refines exceedingly our passive tactile perceptions. Even 
the delicacy of visual perceptions are largely due to eye-move- 
ments. Students in all laboratory courses should be continually 
engaged in making, mapping, charting, and constructing. 

Manual Training. — Some form of manual training should find 
a place in every school curriculum, and all pupils in the school 
should be required to do some of the work. This is not to take 
the place of physical training, nor can we substitute for it the 
manual work ordinarily done at home. The school should 
emphasize the principles of manual training rather than attempt 
to develop extreme skill in any one direction. Although, on 
practical grounds, I should advocate trade schools, theoretically, 
I should argue against them. The purpose of all education 
should be to secure not knowledge alone, but also some form of 
expression of the knowledge gained in life's activities. All edu- 
cation should have this practical aim. There is no form of 
education which should not be practical in that it should result 
in action which furthers some end of life. Because of the cor- 
relation of the mind and body, there is a tendency for all ideas to 
issue in some form of motor expression. However, unless there 
is definite training the resulting action is not necessarily a desir- 
able one. The energies developed through an idea may be dis- 



578 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

sipated or diffused rather than concentrated and hence produce 
useless results. This is the outcome of much of our knowledge. 
Its active results are indefinite and of no importance to the indi- 
vidual. Hence the necessity for definite training in correlating 
ideas and actions. 

Manual training affords one of the best means for correlating 
ideas and actions and making actions definite rather than dif- 
fused. It is sometimes urged that those engaged in manual 
labor do not need manual training. This, however, is erroneous. 
They perhaps do not need so much manual training as those who 
are engaged in sedentary occupations, but even the farmer and the 
artisan need training which will secure precision of movement. 
Most laborers do not use sufficiently the finer muscles of the body 
and hence never secure great precision of movement — and con- 
sequently lack precision of thinking. 

The majority of our ideas, however abstract, are fundamentally 
dependent upon some form of motor activity for their exactness. 
The philosopher, the author, and the scientist, equally as well as 
the laborer or the tradesman, need manual dexterity and accu- 
racy of motor co-ordinations because their ideas cannot be clear 
or exact except as they are gained and clarified through motor 
activity. A large part of the success of the chemist depends 
upon his dexterity in manipulating apparatus and devising ex- 
periments. Without manual skill he could not accurately test 
old theories nor develop new ones. The slightest inaccuracy in 
weighing a substance oftentimes vitiates whole trains of scientific 
results. Hence the chemist, the physicist, and the engineer 
must have definite manual skill. The great surgeons owe their 
success in no small degree to the extreme fineness of their sense 
of active touch. Without this fineness even though possessed 
of all the medical theories known to the scientific world, no phy- 
sician could become a great surgeon. 

Again, for example, all our notions of weight, size, distance, 
hardness, roughness, etc., are dependent upon motor activity, 
If not gained in fundamental ways the resulting ideas are entirely 
lacking in definiteness and clearness and usually consist merely 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 579 

of words and symbols. We are apt to become mere accumulators 
of words, vendors of second-hand knowledge about things, rather 
than possessors of first-hand concepts. We are apt to become 
traffickers in symbols of knowledge, rather than possessors of 
knowledge itself. We are apt to become dreamers instead of 
doers. Further, since the race primarily gained its knowledge 
at first hand, and only recently began to use written symbols 
extensively, we are admonished that the proper method of gain- 
ing knowledge is through the senses aided by motor activity. 
Scripture 1 emphasizes the importance of manual training in the 
following incisive fashion: "Manual training develops the intel- 
lectual side of the mind as nothing else can. By book-work or 
by study a boy never learns to think or understand, or even re- 
member, as well as he might; it is only when he gets involved 
in sports and games like base-ball and canoeing, or in machinery 
like lathes and buzz-saws, or in laboratory complications like 
chemical analyses and measurements of electricity, that he ever 
learns to think fully as a man." 

Various Means of Motor Training. — In considering motor edu- 
cation it must not be overlooked that there are manifold forms 
of motor activity besides those connected with the manual arts. 
All activities which give control of the body and secure poise 
are important to cultivate. Even without possessing manual 
training departments as such the school possesses many oppor- 
tunities for important motor training. Walking, standing, sit- 
ting, silence, orderliness, good manners, politeness, all demand 
the development of motor habits. The plays and games can 
be turned to good account. Writing, drawing, map-making, 
constructing apparatus and setting it up, conducting experi- 
ments, all demand a high type of manual training. A musical 
education depends largely upon skill resulting from motor edu- 
cation. Apart from the role performed by the sensitized ear, 
musical skill is entirely a matter of training muscles to respond 
in delicate co-ordinations. Singing and playing any musical 
instrument require motor training of a high degree. 

1 Manual Training Magazine, I, 24. 



580 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Motor Aspect of Language. — Every idea-process gets inter- 
woven with a great variety of muscular co-ordinations, and 
among the most prominent are those involved in our use of 
language. The words and symbols are not only means of men- 
tal economy, expression, and of understanding others, but they 
become in reality a part of the ideational process. The idea 
could never have attained the same clearness without the use of 
words; in fact full-fledged abstractions could not have been 
gained at all without the use of language and they cannot be 
revived without employing language symbols. Consequently, 
in considering motor training we must not overlook these most 
refined of all motor relations between thought and language. 
There must be adequate opportunity for expressing ideas not 
only for the purpose of rendering the ideas permanent, but 
equally important and more fundamental, for the purpose of 
making the ideas themselves clear and vivid. Real ideas are 
not something added to one's mind, but a part of the mind itself. 
Halleck says to speak of "motor ideas" is as tautological as to 
speak of "wet water." One of the specific purposes of the reci- 
tation is to afford opportunity for expression. The recitation 
may demand oral expression, dramatization, written exercises, 
drawing, constructing apparatus, moulding, or some form of man- 
ual training. The motor activity serves not only to fix ideas, but 
also to clarify and enlarge them, and even to furnish new ideas. 
To abolish the recitation and depend entirely upon the absorp- 
tive process is to fail to utilize one of the most important means 
of education. 

Vocal speech, for example, requires the nicest sort of motor 
adjustments, and the ability to talk fluently, accurately, and in 
a pleasing manner is no mean accomplishment. The possession 
of this ability implies accuracy and clearness of ideas as well as 
training in expression. Oral speech is often one's most valua- 
ble asset. It is usually the best index of what we know and 
what we are. No motor training is harder to acquire, rarer to 
be observed, and worthier of cultivation than perfect oral speech. 
Much time in the child's early life is occupied with acquiring 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 581 

speech. The process is largely one of subconscious imitation, 
but the results are no less certain and valuable than when gained 
through painful, conscious attention to the process. The child 
who hears correct language in the home is fortunate indeed. 
He is saved many painful hours of unlearning. The schools also 
are relieved of the burden of undoing undesirable habits. Lan- 
guage training in the lower school grades should be largely oral 
and is a fundamental problem in motor adjustment. When 
teaching written expression, of course, the problem is also one 
of motor training, and even a most important kind of manual 
training. Learning a foreign language demands the acquisition 
of many motor adjustments. The memorizing of a vocabulary 
is for certain types of individuals very largely a task of motor 
memory. Acquiring accuracy and facility in speaking the for- 
eign language is pre-eminently a motor task. To write it de- 
mands still other muscular training. 

Training of Defectives. — The methods of dealing with defec- 
tives have been very radically modified during the last few years, 
and one of the directions of change is in the greater employment 
of motor activities. Formerly the first attempt to train the 
feeble-minded consisted in an effort to teach them reading and 
writing — the very last things that they needed. Now, with 
greater wisdom, motor training is made the first consideration. 
The unfortunates are taught to walk, run, stand, throw and 
catch a ball, climb ladders, use simple tools, put on their own 
clothing, to wrestle, etc. These activities give control of the 
larger movements of the body and gradually finer co-ordinations 
are introduced. If they master these activities they are given exer- 
cises in gaining sense-perceptions through a variety of motor ac- 
tivities. Manual training occupies an important place. Abstract 
intellectual work like reading and arithmetic are taken up only if 
sufficient progress has been made in the foregoing to warrant the 
belief that intelligent progress can be made. Methods of dealing 
with the criminal classes have also been transformed in many 
reformatories. Manual training occupies the foreground there. 1 

1 See the Elmira Reformatory Year Book for 1897, pp. 57-121. 



582 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

General Suggestions. — James says concerning the necessity 
for reactions: 1 "If all this be true, then immediately one general 
aphorism emerges which ought by logical right to dominate the 
entire conduct of the teacher in the class-room. No reception 
without reaction, no impression without correlative expression — 
this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget. 
An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears, 
and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to 
waste. It is physiologically incomplete. It leaves no fruits 
behind it in the way of capacity acquired. Even as a mere im- 
pression, it fails to produce its proper effect upon the memory; 
for, to remain fully among the acquisitions of this latter faculty, 
it must be wrought into the whole cycle of our operations. Its 
motor consequences are what clinch it. Some effect due to it in 
the way of an activity must return to the mind in the form of 
the sensation of having acted, and connect itself with the im- 
pression. The most durable impressions are those on account 
of which we speak or act, or else are inwardly convulsed. The 
older pedagogic method of learning things by rote, and reciting 
them parrot-like in the school-room, rested on the truth that a 
thing merely read or heard, and never verbally reproduced, con- 
tracts the weakest possible adhesion in the mind. Verbal reci- 
tation or reproduction is thus a highly important kind of reactive 
behavior on our impressions." 

If it is a law of life that expression naturally follows impres- 
sions, we may rightly be challenged with the query why educa- 
tion needs to concern itself with producing reactions? The 
answer is: although ideo-motor action is the rule, we must keep 
in mind the fact that in experiencing any new impressions, chil- 
dren, and even adults, are much like primitive organisms. 
Energy tends to be diffused and reactions are so scattered that 
the effects are lost or else the reaction may be wholly at variance 
with the idea. A given stimulus may become coupled with an 
undesirable response as, for example, the child may be asked 
to spell a word and happen upon a misspelling and this misspell- 

1 Talks to Teachers, pp. 33, 34. 



MOTOR EXPRESSION 583 

ing tends to stick unless education furnishes the right response. 
An incorrect pronunciation, a bad method of holding the pen, 
or an improper posture may be fixed upon by chance, and 
training must be given to guard against them or eradicate them 
if once established. 

Again, the response may be so diffused and general as to be 
very indefinite and inexact, as when the child is beginning to 
talk. He hears words and is stimulated to speak, but only a long 
process of trial and error establishes correctness of response. 
The habit once fixed is a means of mental enslavure. We are 
by no means certain either that stimuli have been perceived 
accurately until they produce the right response. When the 
child fails to pronounce a word correctly we have reason to be 
suspicious of his perception of the proper sounds. Of course 
it is possible to perceive relations that cannot be expressed, but 
in general the more accurate and refined the expression the more 
exact the perception. Education must then secure reactions for 
the purpose of understanding, clarifying, and refining percep- 
tions, concepts, and other mental processes. 



XXII 

THE NATURE OF THINKING 

Preliminary Meaning of Thinking. — In the older books on 
psychology which divided the mind very definitely into separate 
and distinct "faculties," thinking was considered as wholly 
different from other intellectual processes. But when we analyze 
the process and find that it consists of carefully considering, 
weighing, comparing, and forming judgments concerning given 
data, we notice that this is not wholly different from what takes 
place in perception. In fact, in any effective process of recog- 
nition or of identification, similar processes take place. The 
child that recognizes its mother or a toy as familiar must go 
through the mental act of comparing the object present to the 
senses with the mental idea of it and then judge that it agrees with 
that idea. If not recognized it would be because the sensations 
did not correspond to any mental product in stock. Whatever 
we perceive definitely must be marked off from all other objects. 
For example, in perceiving my lamp on the table before me I 
must differentiate that from the table and from the books strewn 
around. I must also compare it with my idea of my lamp and 
conclude that it corresponds with my remembered idea. Then 
only do I know this object to be my lamp. 

Thinking in Other Processes. — In remembering or imagining 
effectively we must likewise note resemblances and differences, 
make analyses, compare, weigh, and judge whether the remem- 
bered or imagined thing is the one desired. In reciting a lesson 
the child mind, by virtue of mechanical associations so character- 
istic of childhood, recalls many things that are irrelevant. To 
recite properly he must scrutinize these ideas and exclude those 
that do not bear upon the point under discussion. This is to 

584 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 585 

think. That the child does not give an orderly array of facts 
is not an indication that he does not think, but it is evidence that 
he does not think carefully. Some types of school work do not 
demand a high order of thinking. They are based largely upon 
the formation of mechanical associations. But even such work 
demands some thinking. For example, in reciting an elementary 
lesson in a foreign language, which is largely memory work, there 
must be some comparison and discrimination. But, to acquire 
the vocabulary of a foreign language does not require a high 
order of thought, because the number of ideas to be compared is 
small, and mechanical registration has made the matter largely 
habitual. To master the grammar and to learn to read critically 
or to evaluate the literature critically require most careful, pains- 
taking, and exacting comparisons — thinking. To build up a 
consistent imaginative product requires a careful discrimination 
among the many pictures that may be suggested. The success- 
ful poet, painter, or sculptor must exercise careful judgment 
concerning the possible combinations suggested in imagery. 
Even the one who indulges in day-dreams or allows the fancy 
to run riot must exercise some selective judgment. Only that 
which is pleasing is harbored; that which is painful or displeas- 
ing is rejected. To do either involves discrimination, identifi- 
cation, and judgment. 

Halleck says: 1 "It was formerly supposed that human beings 
did not think early in life; that then they perceived and remem- 
bered; that after they had seen and treasured up a great deal, 
they began to think. These processes were considered to be as 
sharply marked off from each other as the Dead Sea and the 
ocean. We now know that no one can perceive without thinking 
at the same time." Dr. Harris has brought this idea before us 
very cogently, and some may think even in an extreme way in 
the following statement: 2 "Sense-perception is not a simple act 
that can be no further analyzed. In its most elementary forms 
one may readily find the entire structure of reason. The differ- 

1 Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 182. 

2 Psychologic Foundations of Education, p. 63. 



586 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ence between the higher and lower forms of intelligence con- 
sists not in the presence or absence of phases of thought, but 
in the degree of completeness of the consciousness of them 
— the whole is present, but is not consciously perceived to be 
present, in the lower forms. The whole structure of reason 
functions not only in every act of mind, no matter how low in 
the scale — say even in the animal intelligence — nay, more, in the 
life of the plant which has not yet reached the plane of intellect 
— yes, even in the movement of inorganic matter: in the laws 
of celestial gravitation there is manifested the structural frame- 
work of reason." 

Ribot, in The Evolution of General Ideas, similarly remarks 
that the operations of abstraction and generalization "exist 
already in perception, and advance by successive and easily 
determined stages to the more elevated forms of pure sym- 
bolism, accessible only to the minority." * Romanes em- 
phasizes this genetic view of mind and its varying degrees of 
complexity as opposed to the "compartment" psychology. He 
believes that even reason is involved in perception. To be sure 
in simple perceptions reasoning is nothing more than crude 
inference, but inference consists in the perception of relations, 
and the formation of conclusions is the basis of reasoning. The 
following quotation is apropos with reference to the relations 
among the various intellectual powers, as illustrating the meaning 
of thinking, and also because of its importance in showing the 
evolutionary stages of the processes. "While treating of the 
genesis of perception I pointed out that the faculty admits of 
numberless degrees of elaboration. These we found to depend 
largely, or even chiefly, upon the degree of complexity presented 
by the objects or relations perceived. Now when a perception 
reaches a certain degree of elaboration, so that it is able to take 
cognizance of the relation between relations, it begins to pass 
into reason, or ratiocination. Contrariwise, in its highest stages 
of development, ratiocination is merely a highly complex process 
of perception — i. e., a perception of the equivalency of perceived 

1 Preface, p. v. 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 587 

ratios, which are themselves more or less elaborated percepts 
formed out of simpler percepts, or percepts lying nearer to the 
immediate data of sensation. Thus, universally ratiocination 
(reasoning) may be considered as the higher development of 
perception; for at no point can we draw the line and say that 
the two are distinct. In other words, a perception is always 
in its essential nature what logicians term a conclusion, whether 
it has reference to the simplest memory of a past sensation or to 
the highest product of abstract thought. . . . There is no real 
break between cognition of the lowest and of the highest order." 1 

Binet in his book, The Psychology of Reasoning, has a chap- 
ter on "Reasoning in Perception," in which he traces the de- 
velopment of perception and shows that "the work involved in 
every perception is identical with the operation which consists 
in drawing a conclusion when the premises are given." 2 " From 
the logical point of view the percept is a judgment, an act which 
determines a relation between two facts, or in other words, an 
act which affirms [or denies] something of something." 3 "In 
short, perception and reasoning have the three following char- 
acteristics in common: First, they belong to mediate and indi- 
rect knowledge; second, they require the intervention of truths 
formerly known (recollections, facts of experience, premises); 
third, they imply the recognition of a similitude between the 
fact affirmed and the anterior truth upon which it depends. 
The union of these characteristics shows that perception is 
comparable to the conclusions of logical reasoning." * It should 
perhaps be stated that Binet adds in a foot-note the explanation 
that, "in perception, the mind never rises so high as a general 
conclusion; it simply comes to a conclusion on the object present 
to the senses. It is an inference from particular to particular, 
and likewise, in the case where perception is aided by a consid- 
erable number of anterior experiences, it is a deduction." 

Unity of Mental Life. — From the emphasis afforded by the 
opinions of the foregoing notable psychologists we may justly 

1 Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 319. 

2 P. 91. 3 P. 78. «P. 88. 



588 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

reaffirm that thinking is not an absolutely new process, but that 
it is present in varying degrees in all mental processes above 
mere sensations — which are like the chemist's atom — hypothet- 
ical. Any process that rises to the dignity of a perception in- 
volves thinking. The sharp lines of demarcation between the 
various phases of mental life, which to the untrained or the 
beginner in the study of psychology seem to exist, no longer are 
visible. On the contrary, the several "faculties" or powers 
which seemed to be so definitely separated from each other now 
appear to shade off into each other. Mental life instead of 
being a piece-work is seen more and more as a unity. Defini- 
tions of mental powers which at first seemed absolutely inclusive 
and exclusive now need many qualifying codicils. It is neces- 
sary in all science to classify knowledge. That is one meaning 
of scientific procedure. We classify and arrange material into 
groups for the purpose of isolating it and subjecting it to closer 
scrutiny. The classes then serve the same functions as words. 
They are tickets or signs by which groups of ideas are identified. 
In their highest phases of development two kinds of mental life 
are, of course, clearly marked off from each other. In their 
more elemental phases they may be most vitally related and 
difficult to distinguish from each other. For example, the 
emotions and the will seem clearly separated, yet a close analysis 
of their origins reveals indistinguishable likenesses and. real 
relations. Again some forms of memory seem absolutely differ- 
ent from some forms of imagination, but we have seen how 
difficult it is to distinguish them in their origins. In fact is this 
not true in the material world? Man is clearly different from 
a tree, but how about the simplest plants and the simplest 
animals? Who can tell absolutely the difference between vege- 
table and mineral substances? 

As in the material world it becomes convenient to separate 
objects into groups for analysis, so in the mental world we find 
it convenient to arrange the diverse activities into groups of 
"faculties," or powers, or processes, or whatever we may con- 
ventionally designate them. But we must bear in mind that 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 589 

no phase of mental life exists alone. If this idea of diversity 
in unity is thoroughly comprehended, we are then prepared to 
understand that this chapter is not our first consideration of the 
process of thinking. This is merely the first time we are to 
select and isolate for special consideration certain characteristics 
which serve to differentiate higher thinking from other processes. 

Higher Phases of Thinking. — While it has been maintained 
that thinking is a very elemental process, yet it should be dis- 
tinctly understood that the examples mentioned represent only 
very crude forms of thinking. The advanced stages of thought 
involve abstraction of a high degree, besides the formation of 
logical concepts, deliberate judgment, and reasoning. This last 
process means the careful weighing and sifting of concepts and 
the formation of newer and higher concepts. Both analysis and 
synthesis are employed to a higher degree. The attention must 
be fixed upon each of the possible relations and then upon the 
relation expressing the conclusion. 

Dewey has constructed the following definition, but we must 
keep in mind that it is the higher forms of thinking to which it 
applies. He says: "Thinking may be defined as knowledge of 
universal elements; that is, of ideas as such, or of relations. In 
thinking, the mind is not confined, as in perception or memory, 
to the particular object or event, whether present or past. It 
has to do, not with this man whom I see, or the one I saw yester- 
day, but with the idea of man; an idea which cannot be referred 
to any definite place or time; which is, therefore, general or 
universal in its nature. Its closest connection is with imagina- 
tion, which deals with the general element in the form of a 
particular concrete image, but in imagination the emphasis is 
upon this particular form, while in thinking the particular form 
is neglected in behalf of the universal content. We do not 
imagine man in general; we imagine some characteristic man, 
Othello, King Arthur, etc. We cannot think a particular man; 
we think man in general ; that is, those universal qualities com- 
mon to all men — the class qualities." * 

1 Psychology, p. 202. 



5qo PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Sully writes: 1 "The intellectual operations hitherto consid- 
ered have had to do with the concrete, that is to say, the pres- 
entations of the senses, and the representations formed on the 
models of these. To perceive, to remember, and to imagine 
have reference to some particular object, as the river Thames, 
or a particular occurrence, as the coronation of the German 
emperor in 187 1, in its concrete fulness as it presents itself or 
would present itself to our senses. But we may reflect on some 
one attribute of these, as the movement, or the width of the 
river, or the splendor of this particular ceremony; and we may 
reason about rivers or ceremonies in general. When we do 
thus separate out for special consideration particular attributes 
or aspects of concrete things, and consider things in their rela- 
tion to other things, and to deal with them as generalities, we 
are said to think." 

Huxley, that wonderful past master in the highest forms of 
critical thinking, said: "Do you know what it is to think? It 
is to still the voices of revery and sentiment, and the inclinations 
of nature, and to listen to the language of reason; it is to analyze 
and discriminate; it is to ask the why and the wherefore of things, 
to estimate them at their real worth, and to give them their 
proper names; it is to distinguish between what is of opinion 
and what is of speculation — what of reason and inference, and 
what of fancy and imagination; it is to give the true and the false 
their respective value; it is to lay down a clearly defined line 
between what is of true science and what is of surmise and con- 
jecture; it is to know where one's knowledge ends and where 
one's ignorance begins; above all, it is to arrive at that condition 
of mind in which one can determine how and when to express 
what he knows, and in which one performs the more difficult task 
of abstaining from speaking about that of which he knows 
nothing." 

Importance of Effective Thinking. — The school should train 
the pupil to think, and to think effectively. That is, it should 
free the child from superstition, it should train him to weigh 

1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 259. 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 591 

authorities, not to accept things dogmatically. It should train 
him to form conclusions from given data. These conclusions 
should be just such, and only such, as are warranted by the facts 
in hand. Some people form no conclusions at all for themselves. 
They never dare assert opinions unless others bear them com- 
pany. They are largely echoes of other people. Still others form 
opinions, but too hastily, the conclusions not being based on evi- 
dence and unwarranted by the facts. Both these tendencies must 
be overcome. There is the child who repeats only what the 
book says, and again the child who is continually talking without 
thinking. Both of these classes may be helped by careful atten- 
tion in requiring them to be judicial. One needs to be pushed 
into the water to be shown that he can swim, and the other needs 
to be restrained from jumping into the whirlpools. 

Independence in Thinking. — Independence in thinking is a 
rare but thoroughly economical mode of activity. Many people 
are so unused to thinking for themselves that they would be 
frightened at the appearance in consciousness of a thought really 
their own. It has been said that "animals think not at all and 
some men a little." Most of the effective thinking of the world 
is carried on by a relatively small number of individuals. The 
rest of the world are mere echoists. This is a terribly wasteful 
process, and sinful. There are hundreds of every-day illustra- 
tions which prove that many people do very little independent 
thinking. The majority of voters cast their ballot for the same 
party as their fathers belonged to, or allow themselves to be 
dictated to by a few political bosses. Multitudes of people 
regulate their conduct, their business, and their speech entirely 
by other people's thoughts. Their conclusions are all second- 
hand and give evidence of great mustiness. If one doubts the 
force of tradition just let him try to secure some reform in any 
direction he pleases. A new measure is at once regarded with 
suspicion simply because no one ever knew of that before. Every 
new idea proposed for the schools is at once branded by the 
masses as a "fad." 

Millions of gallons of patent medicines containing alcohol and 



592 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

opiates as the chief ingredients are sold annually. Thousands 
of babies are stupefied by being dosed with "soothing syrups" 
containing opiates. It is no wonder that so many children grow 
up stupid. The "quiet" produced by the opiates sometimes 
persists through life. Hygienic rules which common-sense 
should teach every one are ever being ignorantly disobeyed. 
The history of medicine is replete with illustrations of the influ- 
ence of charms, incantations, and fetichisms. Even to-day the 
masses can be wheedled into absurd notions concerning med- 
icinal values. Let some one announce a "vegetable remedy," 
or still better an "Indian vegetable remedy," or a "vegetable 
remedy discovered by a missionary or an Egyptian," and it at 
once has millions of throats open to receive it. 

When Columbus asserted that the earth was spherical people 
scouted the idea, and when he passed through the streets 
jeered at him as being an insane man. Had they not evidence 
through their own senses that disproved such a crazy theory as 
he proposed? A little later Galileo, Copernicus, and Bruno 
shocked the world by asserting that not the earth but the sun 
is the centre of the universe. They were not only scorned but 
Bruno was burned at the stake because he would not retract, 
and Galileo, after bitter persecution, was made to swear that 
he had never believed such blasphemous doctrines. Could the 
people not see with their own eyes ? The sun rose every morn- 
ing and set every night after travelling round the earth. Various 
conjectures were rife as to what it did during the darkened half 
of the day, but of its course during the other hours and of its 
relation to the earth they were positive. Could they not believe 
their own senses ? And Aristotle had never mentioned such a 
preposterous proposition. Munroe 1 writes that "during this 
long period . . . the dry formalism and dead conning of words 
. . . led, inevitably, to the dreary hootings of scholasticism. 
This owlish learning, growing more outrageous as its metaphys- 
ics became more absurdly deep, soon lost all point of contact 
with humanity. Its husks of syllogism drove all appetite for 

1 The Educational Ideal, p. 9. 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 593 

real learning from the mind of the student, and he contented 
himself, ignorant of better intellectual food, with a smattering 
of Latin, a jargon of philosophy." 

Superstitions and signs have by no means all belonged to a 
by-gone age. Why does the horseshoe hang over so many doors ? 
Why do so many people hesitate to begin a journey or a new- 
piece of work on Friday? Why do fewer steamships start on 
Friday than any other day, if they can get plenty of passengers 
for Friday? Recently I met a man carrying a rattlesnake's 
tail in his hat-band. On inquiry I found that he did this to ward 
off rheumatism! He firmly believed in the efficiency of the 
senseless process. Why do farmers plant their potatoes in the 
new of the moon and some other crops in the old of the moon? 
Why do they consult the almanac before slaughtering a beef or 
weaning a lamb? To-day happens to be "ground-hog day" 
and thousands of people are pinning their faith in the remaining 
winter weather upon the supposed action of the innocent little 
creature. I recently heard a man say, "The winter has been 
so cold, we shall have an early spring." A little applied knowl- 
edge of the convertibility of heat into other forms of energy 
would teach that there is no necessary truth in his statement. 

The School Should Train to Think. — The school can perform 
no higher function than to teach independence in thinking. Un- 
fortunately, as many schools are conducted, everything tends to 
beget dependence. The child finds himself in a realm of mys- 
terious, meaningless symbols, strange customs, and arbitrary 
rules and regulations for his conduct, and is forthwith made to 
feel that all must be learned and accepted unquestioningly. As 
he progresses he finds words without significance which he must 
pronounce, read, and spell. Rules in arithmetic and grammar 
are forced upon him to be mechanically memorized without 
illumination; long strings of dates, names of kings, queens, 
dynasties, battles, and generals must be recited and called 
history; names of capes, bays, rivers, and mountains, which 
have only location must be committed, etc. Most of this is 
without a glimmering of meaning or a particle of interest in the 



594 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

content on the part of the learner. The child early learns by 
imitation to accept the husks of knowledge and to produce the 
certificates for real knowledge when called on to recite. Instead 
of continuing in a questioning attitude he learns that the line 
of least resistance is to take everything ready-made. Dewey 
remarks that "what is primarily required is first-hand experi- 
ence. Until recently the school has literally been dressed out 
with hand-me-down garments, with intellectual suits which 
other people have worn." 

Although it is the utmost pedantry to expect the child to be 
a discoverer or an inventor of knowledge, new and valuable to 
the world, yet he must be led through the established truths in 
the "course" in such a way that it shall possess interest, ration- 
ality, and meaning for him. Many truths he can and should 
be led purposively to discover by himself and for himself — not 
for the world — and what you point out to him should be under- 
stood and full of interest. Of course in so doing he will not 
make independent discoveries. But you will have supplied the 
conditions which it may have taken the world ages to discover, 
and the child will now perceive the relations and the results. 
With all the rule-of-thumb exercises, the parrot memorizing, and 
the dogmatic statements which the child finds at school, it is 
little wonder that he forgets that he has ideas of his own when 
school questions are under consideration, even though he is 
ultra-independent on the diamond or the gridiron and among 
his fellows. Coleridge says: "To educate is to train to think, 
for by active thinking alone is knowledge attained. Without 
active thought we cannot get beyond mere belief, for to pass 
from belief to knowledge means to sift and weigh evidence for 
oneself. . . . Alas," he exclaims further, "how many examples 
are now present to my memory, of young men the most anx- 
iously and expensively be-school-mastered, be-tutored, be-lect- 
ured, anything but educated; who have received arms and am- 
munition, instead of skill, strength, and courage; varnished rather 
than polished; perilously over-civilized, and most pitiably un- 
cultivated! And all from inattention to the method dictated 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 595 

by nature herself, to the simple truth, that as the forms in all 
organized existence, so must all true and living knowledge pro- 
ceed from within; that it may be trained, supported, fed, excited, 
but can never be infused or impressed." * 

Inexact Use of Language. — It is difficult for the average person 
to do much abstract and sustained thinking. There is appar- 
ently an inertia of mind to be overcome in order to do real 
thinking. The mind becomes habituated to acting in certain 
fixed channels. This is rendered more probable on account of 
stereotyped language forms. We sometimes think we are ex- 
pressing ideas when we are using only the symbols. If we exam- 
ine our oral speech we are surprised at the great number of 
common stereotyped expressions. We deal largely in currency 
of the denominations stamped by popular usage and rarely pay 
in original, independently coined denominations. Let any one 
attempt a description and see how largely he uses habitual 
expressions. In a great measure our language comes to us 
ready-made and most people use many words and expressions 
with very indefinite notions of the meanings. Creighton says: 
"The only way in which we can be saved from becoming 'intel- 
lectual dead-beats,' is by the formation of good mental habits. 
It requires eternal vigilance and unceasing strenuousness to 
prevent our degeneration into mere associative machines." 2 
Bacon writes: "Men imagine that their reason governs words, 
whilst, in fact, words react upon the understanding." 3 That 
noble and painstaking pioneer in critical thinking, John Locke, 
writes on the confusion of words with ideas: "Men having been 
accustomed from their cradles to learn words which are easily 
got and retained, before they knew or formed the complex ideas 
to which they were annexed, or which were to be found in the 
things they were thought to stand for, they usually continue 
to do so all their lives; and without taking the pains necessary 
to settle in their minds determined ideas, they use their words 

1 Quoted by Welton, The Logical Bases oj Education, p. 252. 

2 An Introductory Logic, p. 245. 

3 Novum Organum, Aph. LIX. 



596 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

for such unsteady and confused notions as they have, contenting 
themselves with the same words other people use, as if their very 
sound necessarily carried with it constantly the same meaning. 
. . . This inconsistency in men's words when they come to 
reason concerning their tenets or their interest, manifestly fills 
their discourse with abundance of unintelligible noise and jargon, 
especially in moral matters. . . . Men take the words they find 
in use among their neighbors; and, that they may not seem 
ignorant what they stand for, use them confidently, without much 
troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning." l Creigh- 
ton shows us that phrases like "class legislation," "sound 
money," " the people's cause," "liberty," "justice," "equality," 
etc., are frequently used in a very indefinite way. "A man may 
easily deceive himself, and, as he repeats familiar words and 
phrases, imagine himself to be overflowing with patriotism, or 
with sympathy for others, or with religious feelings." 2 

Habits and Effective Thinking. — It is important for the student 
to understand early the force and value of habit. Much time is 
lost by every one of us because our early training did not render 
automatic all those activities that we have to perform constantly 
and in the same way. Purely mechanical work can be controlled 
more economically by lower nervous centres than by higher. In 
childhood and youth the nervous system is plastic, a prime con- 
dition for memorizing and fixing habits. Among the habits that 
should become ingrained during this period are those of correct 
bodily postures and activities, correct speech, the multiplication- 
table, spelling, writing, those involved in learning to speak foreign 
languages, etc. Most habits are controlled by the spinal cord 
which is early developed. Hence we should form habits early 
so that the brain may be relieved later of mechanical work and 
be concerned with higher operations. As Dr. Balliet has 
observed: "At first a child uses his brain in walking, later he 
can walk from habit and walks therefore with his spinal cord. 
As first we spell with painful consciousness, later we spell familiar 

1 Essay Concerning the Human Understanding, book III, chap. 10. 

2 Op. cit., p. 24S. 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 597 

words of our vocabulary with little or no consciousness. Chil- 
dren ought to be trained to write and spell mainly with the spinal 
cord, and to use all their brain-power in thinking the thoughts 
to be expressed. We do many things with the spinal cord to 
relieve the brain. We walk with the cord, we write and spell 
with the cord; I suppose we knit and gossip with the spinal 
cord; indeed we may sing and pray, not with our hearts, nor 
with our brains, but with the upper part of our spinal cord. We 
tip our hats to each other, not with our brains, but mainly with 
our spinal cord; when we meet people whom we do not wish to 
see, we often shake hands mechanically with our spinal cord — 
hence we speak of a 'cordial welcome.'" 

Not only do these elementary physical activities become auto- 
matic, but also processes of judging and reasoning must become 
largely mechanical before becoming serviceable. One's think- 
ing is largely specialized and judgment outside of the well- 
beaten track of thinking is not very valuable. The lawyer's 
opinion concerning disease is slowly formed and unreliable; 
the doctor's judgment about legal matters likewise is valueless. 
The expert in a given line is one who has studied widely and 
who can form instantaneous judgments because of the habitual 
consideration of the data. Difficult studies pursued through a 
long time until mastery is complete become simple as the alpha- 
bet. Mathematicians become so familiar with the calculus that 
they read it for recreation when fatigued with other work. The 
lawyer can instantly cite scores of cases and precedents for which 
the tyro would have required hours to summon to the foreground 
of consciousness. Hence, when knowledge is to become usable 
it must be pondered long and every detail absolutely appropri- 
ated. To arrange work in such a way as to sustain interest 
through variety and at the same time dwell upon it until 
thoroughly comprehended and appropriated is high teaching 
art. The demands for variety frequently allure to new fields 
before assimilation has been effected. 

I wonder if there is not much in modern student life that 
militates against the deepest thinking. With the multiplication 



598 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of student activities, of themselves in no way secondary to any 
others in importance, have not the opportunities for sequestered 
contemplation decreased? With foot-ball, base-ball, basket- 
ball, tennis, rowing, skating, the literary society, the dramatic 
club, the freshman banquet, the sophomore cotillion, the junior 
"prom," the senior "hop"; the numberless fraternity, sorority, 
and various house parties; the church, social, and other en- 
gagements, besides the loafing hour, the theatre, concert, spe- 
cial lectures galore, the newspapers and magazines to scan, the 
letters to write home and other places, applications for schools 
to make, etc., one might well exclaim: "And when do they find 
time to study?" In ancient times and in the Middle Ages the 
scholars shut themselves away from the world, quiet as it was, 
in order to avoid the distractions against thinking. While they 
erred in not recognizing that the senses are the source of all 
knowledge, were they not wise in recognizing that to think 
effectively demands solitude? 

Many students take on altogether too many activities. In 
my own observation I have known several students who arrested 
their development badly by getting too many irons in the fire. 
A student's popularity is not infrequently the cause of his intel- 
lectual arrest. By attempting debates, athletics, dramatics, 
study, and society all at the same time, his energies are dissipated, 
his growth stunted, while his plodding companion by everlast- 
ingly keeping at a few things finally becomes a master and 
frequently astonishes even himself as well as his acquaintances. 
Even short courses with too much variety, except for inspiration, 
are uneconomical because they do not lay permanent founda- 
tions. Too many open lecture courses provided by faculties 
may easily be distracting and a source of dissipation. The 
student must learn to say no to the siren's voice which contin- 
ually beckons him on to new fields. 

I sometimes feel that there ought to be some course labelled 
"thinking" in which the individual should be isolated from 
everybody long enough to really empty his mind of all ideas 
which are merely echoes, and then to discern what are really 



THE NATURE OF THINKING 599 

his own. With all the distraction of congested social life, the 
time may come when it would be a blessing for the State to 
imprison a few great men each year and allow them only pen, 
ink, and paper. It may have been a fortunate thing for the 
world that John Bunyan languished in prison until his thoughts 
had time to germinate and come to full fruition. Possibly the 
blind Milton, shut away from the distractions of visual stimuli, 
may have looked within and discovered thoughts struggling for 
expression, but stifled with the ephemeral ideas of sense per- 
ception. 

While we are rightly emphasizing group activities as an aid in 
developing altruism, I wonder whether students do not some- 
times misinterpret its meaning. Self-activity is fundamental in 
the process of acquisition of knowledge. No knowledge is of 
much value that is not made one's own personal possession. 
This means more than the recital of words and formulas gained 
from books and companions. In their desire to be helpful, I 
sometimes see students in groups, even sitting on the stairways 
where the crowds are passing, believing they are studying together. 
When one hears the bits of gossip interspersed between the formu- 
las, the declensions, and historical dates one wonders where the 
calm reflection, deep concentration, analysis, comparison, doubt, 
contemplation, deliberation, complete abstraction, enter in. 
An over-social room-mate who persists in retailing the gossip of 
the day during the hour set apart for study is an uneconomical 
acquisition. Psychology has thoroughly demonstrated that we 
can consciously attend economically to only one set of ideas at 
a time. Even much note-taking in class is an uneconomical 
distraction. The faithful but misguided student frequently 
attempts to take down every word uttered. He deceives himself, 
for, what he hopes to carry under his arm, he should have in his 
head. No wonder that sometimes the less scrupulous one who 
cuts class and borrows notes instead of writing them fares about 
as well. 

In student life it is important to thoroughly master a task as 
speedily as possible. To skim over a lesson and leave it without 



6oo PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mastery is wasteful. The process may be repeated a dozen 
times in this way and then be only half learned. Hence, " what- 
soever thou fmdest to do, do it with all thy mind and with all 
thy heart and with all thy strength." 

May I say a word on the ethics of cramming for examinations ? 
The method is a delusion and a snare. Ideas are not grasped, 
associations are not made, brain tracks are not made permanent, 
and even though the student might pass an examination on such 
possessions, like the notes of an insolvent bank they are found 
to be worthless trash when put to real use. Instead of wisdom 
more to be prized than fine gold, such a process may leave one 
with only bogus certificates. Make your mental acquisitions 
absolutely your own while going over the subject day by day, 
take ten hours of sleep before every examination day, and the 
results need not be feared. In trying to gain possessions most 
economically and to make them most permanent, I give fre- 
quently the following recipe: Study your lesson as if you ex- 
pected to teach it. When you can teach it to some one else you 
possess it. Frequently actually try to teach your lesson. If your 
room-mate will not submit, inflict it upon an imaginary pupil. 
Some one said: "I do not lecture to instruct others, but to clear 
up my own ideas." x 

1 See The Popular Science Monthly, vol. LXXI, September, 1907, where 
several of the preceding paragraphs were first published by the writer under the 
title "Some Ethical Aspects of Mental Economy." 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 

Importance of the Concept or Universal Truth. — It has been 
well stated by McMurry that the concept is the goal of all 
instruction. This is true if we bear in mind as McMurry has 
done that there are moral truths as well as intellectual, and that 
all worthy truths should result in influencing action. Isolated 
percepts and detached facts are valuable only in so far as they 
form a nucleus or matrix out of which universal truths are 
evolved. Too much of teaching deals with unrelated facts and 
symbols of facts which do not lead to the production of instru- 
ments (the concepts) whereby new cases can be dealt with. The 
solution of a particular example in arithmetic is of no value 
unless it leads to the formation of a rule whereby others of a 
similar nature may be analyzed and solved. A particular ex- 
periment in physics or chemistry may be interesting, but unless 
it illustrates some principle or law it is of no great value,, No 
great progress in foreign languages, or in the mother tongue, for 
that matter, could be made did not the learner arrive (not neces- 
sarily consciously) at laws and principles which are of general 
application. Even the child that says "I runned down the hill" 
has arrived at several general principles, one of which at least 
has exceptions. However, his mistake arises out of his correct 
application of a law which he has learned. 

Psychological Meaning of the Concept. — If conceptual think- 
ing is so important in teaching then it will be valuable for 
teachers to study carefully the meaning of the concept and the 
modes of promoting its formation. The concept differs from 
the percept in many important respects. The percept is partic- 
ular, concrete, and in consciousness only when the object is 

60 1 



602 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

present to the senses. A concrete and specific copy of the percept 
is an image. When percepts of several individuals of the same 
class of objects have been received or when several separate 
percepts of the same thing have been received we gain a sort 
of composite image — something like a composite photograph. 
This has been termed a generic image or a recept. Percepts 
and images are ideas of individual things; are specific and con- 
crete. The concept is an idea of a class. It deals with universals. 
The concepts of chair or house do not refer to particular chairs 
or houses, but to the classes of objects. When we think chair 
conceptually we are not concerned with a big chair or a little 
one, a dining-chair or a rocker, an oak chair or one of mahog- 
any. When we have a concept of animal we do not think of a 
cat -or a dog, a white animal or a black one, a ferocious one or 
a docile one. In all conceptual thinking the characteristics 
common to the class are included. As soon as we turn to some 
particular individual of the class we must think in terms of per- 
cepts or of images. The concept, however, cannot be imaged. 

We must guard against the idea that a concept relates to 
material objects only or even that it is always represented by 
a noun. There are just as truly concepts of actions or relations. 
The predicate, as well as the subject, in any sentence expresses 
a conceptual idea. The same is true of every other element or 
part of speech. To understand the expression "The ink flows 
freely from my pen," it is just as necessary to understand the 
denotation and the connotation of "flows" as of ink or pen. 
Similarly the prepositional phrase "from my pen" can only be 
understood through the universal idea compounded from the 
many individual ideas that were first known through experience. 
Laws in physics and chemistry, rules in arithmetic and algebra, 
definitions in grammar, are all expressions of conceptual ideas. 
They do not necessarily represent concepts in the child mind. 
If he has begun with the definitions, rules, and laws and learned 
them verbatim, they do not stand for clear, definite, enlarged 
relational ideas. They are mere words, the counters of realities 
and not the realities. But if the elements connoted in the 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 603 

expressions have been experientially known, their relations ap- 
prehended, and the whole knit together into a product which 
gives a new background for all subsequent experiences, then 
we may say that the concept has been experienced. In natural 
science the learner must through classification of ideas be con- 
tinually forming concepts, not only of objects but of their mani- 
fold relations. These concepts must be ever subject to modifi- 
cation and revision through new experiences. 

Genetic View of the Concept. — It should be clearly understood 
that a concept is not a psychical product with a fixed value or 
content. When one gets a concept of a given object he has not 
exactly the same idea as some one else who has a concept des- 
ignated by the same name. The child's idea of horse is, for 
example, very different from the one possessed by the farmer, 
the veterinarian, the jockey, or the zoologist. In fact, each of 
these will have different ideas included in the concept. The 
jockey has all the fine racing points of the horse in his idea, while 
the zoologist thinks of the place in the animal scale to which the 
horse belongs. A given concept also changes in the mind of 
the same individual according to his experiences. One's child- 
hood concept of a given thing is very different from his concept 
of the same thing when he becomes an adult. For example, 
a child is given a book containing pictures; he thereupon marks 
off that object from others and isolates it as a class. But as the 
years go by, if rightly schooled, he gradually enlarges his idea of 
book. He learns of the different bindings, different sizes, vary- 
ing print, and more important for the idea of book, he learns of 
the different types of books judged by the contents. He finds 
that there are story books, reading books, arithmetics, gram- 
mars, histories, geographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias; books 
of fiction, travel, biography, and others in wonderful profusion. 
One's idea of book is never complete, but with the student ever 
enlarging. 

How different the child's idea of carbon, when he has seen 
it exemplified only in a piece of coal, from the concept of the 
chemist who has studied it in its manifold relations. Every one 



604 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

thinks he has a perfect concept of "home." However, let one 
try to describe the homes of the Cingalese, the Kaffirs, the 
Comanches, the Hindoos, or a king, and see whether he will 
not acknowledge that there are multitudes of individual ideas 
that could still be incorporated into his concept, thereby extend- 
ing it. Let the ordinary person try to describe his concept of 
oxygen (which word he would say he understood perfectly) and 
see how narrow his concept, and even how vague. The one 
who has not studied chemistry can tell a little about oxygen. 
One of my adult students said he understood the word, knew 
that the substance was a gas, that plants and animals need it to 
sustain life. This was the expression of a very crude concept; 
one of very narrow content; but it was nevertheless a concept. 
Another student who had studied chemistry a little added that 
it was a constituent of water, of nitric acid, of sulphuric acid, 
and a few other acids; that it was a colorless, odorless, tasteless 
gas, and a few other facts. This student had a little fuller and 
more exact notion or concept of the substance. Suppose I had 
called upon a professor of chemistry ? What he could have told 
me would make a book. His concept is vastly fuller and also 
more exact. 

The child's notion of plants is one thing, the botanist's 
another; the child knows only a few facts and those indefinitely; 
the botanist multitudes of them, and those with exactness. The 
child has formed a few accidental, mechanical associations, for 
example, that all plants have leaves and lose them in the fall; 
the botanist has formed myriads of thoughtful associations 
relating to structure, function, use, and habitat. The child's 
generalizations concerning people are at first few and largely 
the result of chance associations. As he grows older he extends 
his range of acquaintances, discovering different types, enlarging 
his range of observations, drawing newer conclusions, revising 
old ones, thus constantly modifying and enlarging his concept 
of mankind. Before he becomes a sociologist, a statesman, or 
a leader of men in any capacity, his crude childish notions of 
society must undergo such transformation and metamorphism 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 605 

that his specialized adult conceptions will no longer be recog- 
nizable as being related to the primitive ones. However, this 
is the only process whereby the rich, accurate, and completer 
notions could have been developed. The rate of growth may 
be sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but the stages must be 
passed through. Finished concepts can never be borrowed 
ready-made. They must grow and not merely by accretion of 
new material; but also by apperceptive integration. 

The Curriculum and Concept-forming. — In the arrangement 
of our American school curricula we have had too little regard 
for the psychic laws governing the development of concepts. We 
have assumed that the child could learn all there is of a subject 
on the first presentation. Scarcely a secondary school subject 
but that is "finished" the same year it is begun. Geometry, 
which has some very simple fundamental ideas, is deferred until 
about the age of fifteen. It also has some very difficult concep- 
tions and these are taken during the single year, or year and a 
half, devoted to it. Genetic psychology teaches us that it would 
be far better to begin the learning of simple geometric concepts 
many years earlier and gradually approach the more difficult 
ones, reaching the rigorous "original" exercises and the most 
difficult types of theorems much later than fifteen. We begin 
abstract formal grammar when the child should be utterly un- 
conscious of the existence of parts of speech, syntactical rules, 
and declensions. Grammar is a study in psychology, a study 
of the forms, modes, and categories of thought. The child has 
not reached the age of serious reflection and has no interest 
in forms of thought because he does not consciously recognize 
them. Language is to him merely a mode of expression. He 
is interested in its grammar only in so far as he finds it necessary 
to centre upon it in noting his inadequacies of expression. As 
an object of scientific analysis it is one of the branches most 
poorly adapted to the needs of children. Botany, physics, and 
geology are a thousand times better adapted for study at that 
period. Even these should not too early be made subjects of 
rigorous scientific method. But, it is still true, that it is much 



606 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

easier for the child to gain the concept batrachian, rosacea?, and 
mollusk than those of noun, verb, and especially participle, 
infinitive, gerund, and modal adverb. 

Arrangement of German and French Curricula. — The German 
and the French secondary schools are far superior to ours in the 
arrangement and distribution of studies. (I believe we are 
nearer right in the selection of the studies.) They arrange to 
have each study carried through a long period of time. History, 
for example, is carried through the entire course of nine years, 
two or three hours a week; natural science is carried through 
the entire course from two to three hours a week; mathematics 
through the entire course from three to five hours a week, ac- 
cording to the class of the school. Latin is begun in the fourth 
year of school life and carried seven or eight hours a week for 
nine years. In mathematics the order is not arithmetic, algebra, 
geometry, each in turn being finished before the next is begun. 
Geometry is begun in the sixth grade and has two hours a week 
devoted to it while arithmetic is accorded only two. The next 
year elementary algebra is introduced, literal expressions and 
equations of the first degree with one unknown quantity being 
taken. The work in the elementary inductions relating to plane 
figures is continued. Arithmetic is not abandoned but 'more 
difficult work is given in ordinary arithmetic. The algebra and 
the geometry are also correlated with it. In the ninth grade, or 
about the fifteenth year of life, logarithms and trigonometry are 
begun and continued as a part of the mathematical course for 
four years more. It is noticeable that such topics as interest 
and other difficult portions of arithmetic, and in algebra the bi- 
nomial theorem and imaginaries, are deferred until the last 
year, which corresponds to about our sophomore year in 
college. 

The history work is also arranged upon the spiral plan. The 
same facts are re-viewed many times in the course from different 
stand-points. At first the interesting narratives and biographical 
data, as mere facts, are learned. Later the knowledge of the 
same facts is extended and viewed in new relations. At a later 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 607 

time more facts are added, new relations studied, classification 
of these facts and relations made, and the whole knit more 
firmly together. By the time the university is reached the stu- 
dent has a thorough grasp of the significance of the main facts, 
especially of the history of classical nations and of Germany, 
and is then ready for a philosophic treatment of the subject. 
"The psychological principle of repetition is thoroughly carried 
out in their history teaching. The work begins in the lowest 
grade and extends to the highest. They never feel that they 




Fig. 40. 

have 'finished' the subject. The same ground is continually 
crossed and recrossed, viewed from different stand-points and 
from positions where all can be surveyed; the relations of cause 
and effect thoroughly studied until all becomes a closely and 
firmly associated whole. The entire course forms a continuous 
and 'ever ascending spiral from the apex of which an outlook 
over the past is obtained.' They believe in learning much about 
a few things instead of a little about many. In this lies their 
greatest pedagogical strength." * The system might equally 
well be characterized as a system of concentric circles, in which 
each year the circle of thought in each branch or topic is larger 
than in the preceding period. The accompanying diagram 

1 Bolton, The Secondary School System of Germany, p. 250. 



608 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

illustrates the plan. It should be noted that the beginnings of 
all the great fields of knowledge are studied in the elementary 
grades, and that each field is considered in some phase through- 
out the successive years. 

Language and the Growth of Concepts. — There is an inevitable 
functional psycho-motor relation between ideas and expression, 
or between ideas and language. Consequently it is important 
for the teacher to understand the relation and also to understand 
ways and means of affording opportunities for their correlative 
development. If the relation is absolute it may be asked why 
consideration should be given to means of exercise ? In discuss- 
ing motor training in general it was shown that reactions need 
refining. Although some reaction is certain to occur, it is not 
necessarily the most desirable one. The amoeba when stimu- 
lated moves, but the manner and direction are unpredictable. 
Likewise human beings when stimulated tend to express them- 
selves, but the uneducated express themselves inadequately and 
uneconomically. Energy is diffused instead of being confined 
to special channels. 

Whenever reactions to impressions become stereotyped so that 
a particular form of reaction is used in connection with a partic- 
ular state of mind or body there is language. It may include 
gestures, bodily signs, or speech. This discussion will be con- 
fined mainly to vocalized speech. Speech is one of the most 
prominent modes of ideo-motor reactions in human beings. A 
great multitude of impressions issue in vocalized speech. Among 
civilized adults many impressions issue in the form of written 
language. With the development of conceptual thinking some 
symbols become necessary as a means of mental economy. To 
produce each perception or individual idea every time it needs 
consideration, or to revive even in concrete imagery every idea 
would be a tedious process, to say the least. Of course, it is 
impossible to form many ideas at all without recourse to a higher 
stage, viz., abstract thinking. In order to isolate the concept 
and hold it before the mind it is necessary to associate some 
symbol or ticket with it which will make it stand out clearly 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 609 

and also bind together the salient features. This is found in 
words, signs, symbols, formulas, etc. 

At first the word has a limited meaning, standing for a single 
class of ideas, or possibly a single idea. Gradually it becomes 
associated with a variety of ideas or classes of ideas and becomes 
enlarged in meaning. Dr. Harris has suggested that words are 
like bags into which new treasures of a given class are constantly 
being poured. After long use a word is apt to become rich with 
meaning. But not only are words the symbols of ideas. They 
have even a much more vital relation. Because impression and 
expression are absolutely interrelated, because all thought has 
its motor aspect, words come to be an integral part of the idea. 
After an idea has been expressed by means of words the idea 
could no more be reinstated without thought of the word, than 
the idea of skating could be thought of without reviving the idea 
of the appropriate movements. 

Language an Index to Child and Race Development. — There is 
a direct relation between the growth of ideas in the child or in 
the race and the development of language. The race that is 
high in the scale of civilization is rich in ideas, and is possessed 
of a rich vocabulary. The full vocabulary is not only a resultant 
but a cause. The rich vocabulary has enabled the race to 
develop a rich store of concepts. In turn the acquisition of a 
rich variety of concepts has necessitated and stimulated the 
development of a large and expressive vocabulary. The size 
of the dictionary of a people is indicative of their racial status. 
The size of the dictionary is also predictable if one knows the 
mental capacity of the people. 

Likewise the child's vocabulary is a good index to his range 
of ideas and activities. A child denied the privileges of country 
life, for example, will use a vocabulary unrelated to rural con- 
ditions. On the other hand the child's range and accuracy of 
ideas is very vitally conditioned by the acquisition of a suitable 
vocabulary with which to label, isolate, and reflect upon ideas 
he gains through concrete presentations. Many a country boy 
comes in contact with a vast array of concrete facts, but because 



610 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of lack of training to observe more analytically, to think more 
conceptually, and to integrate and clarify his concepts through 
language he remains uneducated in the highest sense. The 
lowest and foundational stages were experienced, but develop- 
ment was arrested upon the low plane. 

The foregoing considerations point toward the necessity of 
wise training in language, both native and foreign. No course 
of study can wisely omit the expression side of the educative 
process. The slogan "ideas before words" should be stated, 
"ideas and words." Language training should be an integral 
part of every course in geography, history, mathematics, or any 
other subject. Some foreign language should also be a required 
part of the course of study, because of the clarifying and enlarg- 
ing effects upon the vernacular. The little child says incoherent 
things, often moves his whole body instead of his vocal organs, 
and if required to think exactly writhes and twists his body, 
hesitates, stammers, and does anything but say the exact thing. 
It is wholly unpsychological to expect that a child shall express 
his ideas in refined language. That result is only possible after 
long training in speech. Some persons never acquire the skill. 
Clearness and accuracy of expression mean clearness of ideas 
and exact co-ordination between ideas gained and means of 
expression, and between these and the muscular organs. Grad- 
ually, through careful training in language, properly correlated 
with the acquisition of ideas and activities, the learner acquires 
the refinements of language which indicate clearness and pre- 
cision of thinking. In the early stages of education, while the 
child is gathering sense impressions and laying the foundations 
for relational thinking, we must be content with many crudities 
of speech. Just as the child sees only externals and those often 
in incorrect relations, we must expect that his speech will be dis- 
connected, distorted, abbreviated, and wholly crude and unre- 
fined. With patience in teaching him to observe and to weigh 
and consider his expression, we may expect his concepts to be- 
come full, clear, and accurate, and his expression to become 
adjusted and correlated with them. The two must grow to- 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 611 

gether, and it is futile to expect either to develop properly 
without the influence of the other. 

The Statement of Concepts. — Although the importance of ex- 
pression and language training have been emphasized, a caution 
needs to be suggested against the forcing of over-refined scientific 
statements before the concepts themselves have been acquired. 
It is easy to require children to memorize definitions and descrip- 
tions of things which they totally fail to comprehend. No defi- 
nition should be committed to memory until its meaning is 
understood. A definition is a highly condensed statement of a 
concept. Since the expression of a concept is the final step in 
its acquisition, if memorized before understood it tends to close 
the mind against further analysis of the content. It therefore 
closes all avenues of acquisition for that particular idea. • What 
is true of definitions is also true of rules. 

It is a good thing to have summaries and outlines made — by 
the pupils themselves. If stereotyped summaries and outlines 
are learned they tend, like definitions, to close the mind against 
further search for content and meaning. An outline presented 
at the beginning of a subject or topic should never be memorized 
at that stage. It may be presented as a sort of guide-board to 
indicate the direction to be followed, but it is detrimental if 
considered as the full expression of the concepts themselves. 
The most valuable outlines and summaries are those made by 
the learners themselves. It is especially important that ad- 
vanced students be required to organize the materials which they 
have acquired. Unless required to do so they, like children, tend 
to depend upon verbal memory, and frequently deceive them- 
selves and their instructors by the expression of knowledge which 
is vague and meaningless to them. Even though the summaries 
made by the learner himself may be less finished than those given 
by the instructor and memorized in form by the learner, they are 
far more valuable than any that are borrowed ready-made. The 
summaries made independently by the learner indicate what 
he knows — his concepts — while those memorized from another 
show what the teacher knows and the pupil is able to echo. 



612 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Scientific Classification and Organization of Knowledge. — Im- 
portant as it is to have knowledge classified in an orderly and 
scientific manner, a caution should be observed against over- 
emphasizing this with beginners. The child mind is not sci- 
entific in its tendencies. It is absorptive, acquisitive, but not 
orderly. The interest and the attention of the child are flitting 
and undoubtedly this is necessary for normal growth. Too long- 
continued attention in any direction causes over-tension and one- 
sidedness of growth, because of the great plasticity at that age. 
It is a great mistake to over-emphasize system, classification, or 
refinement of expression in childhood. It is sure to kill interest, 
spontaneity, and self-activity and to produce arrest of develop- 
ment in some direction or other. We must remember that one 
of the very causes of instability is the struggle of instinctive 
tendencies to assert themselves. While we are causing the child 
to fix absolutely certain forms and formulas, we are probably 
stifling the expression of many desirable instincts and making 
him lop-sided in other directions. Any teacher who has tried 
to teach nature study to children from a book, logically and 
scientifically arranged from the adult point of view, has un- 
doubtedly made a failure of it. Even in the grammar school 
and the high, school there is great danger of over-emphasizing 
the purely logical side of the studies. There is too much anxiety 
to have everything systematized and ticketed when the pupil 
leaves a course at any point. What will be the harm if pupils do 
not "finish" a given "course" in history, geography, or physics? 
Who can say what "the course" should be in any one of them? 
In different countries, in different localities every one of them 
may differ very materially in content. When a student studies 
history in college he certainly ought to organize the subject 
thoroughly, but before that time it is far more important that 
he gather facts and acquire a headway of interest. 

We may go so far as to maintain that with beginners in any 
grade of school, and even in college, there is great danger of 
over-emphasis of classification and systematization of knowledge. 
To classify and organize there must be something to classify and 



THE CONCEPT IN EDUCATION 613 

organize. The beginner in economics, chemistry, psychology, 
or the theory of education, for example, needs to go through a 
gathering period before devoting too much attention to sys- 
tematization and organization, no less than does the child in the 
kindergarten. The genesis and growth of the concept demands 
it; and organization means relatively finished expression of con- 
cepts. Of course, the teacher should proceed in an orderly, 
systematic manner, but it is fatal to spontaneous growth in the 
learner if he becomes too conscious of the method by which he 
is acquiring. He should be absorbingly interested in the ideas 
or activities acquired and relatively oblivious of the method of 
acquisition. Even the teacher must be guided much more by 
the psychological unfolding of his pupils' minds than by logical 
categories. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION IN EDUCATION 

Inference. — The drawing of conclusions from given data is 
termed inference. The mind may move in either one of two di- 
rections in drawing inferences. It may begin with particular 
data, isolated cases, and attempt to determine the general law 
which governs all of the class and seek the necessary relation- 
ship which exists between the cases which seem to fall into a class; 
or it may take the general law and apply it to a particular case. 
In either instance the relationship existing among the ideas or the 
phenomena is what is sought. "The purpose of an inference is 
always the same; namely, to exhibit the relation and connection 
of particular facts or events in virtue of some universal law or 
principle. In deductive thinking, such a law is known, or pro- 
visionally assumed as known, and the problem is to show its 
application to the facts with which we are dealing. In induction, 
on the other hand, the starting-point must be the particular 
facts, and the task which thought has to perform is to discover 
the general law of their connection. Both deduction and induc- 
tion play an important part in the work of building up knowl- 
edge." 1 

Meaning of Induction. — In e very-day life we employ a great 
many words which denote concepts. Many of these classifica- 
tions of objects, laws, rules, and relations we have not worked 
out for ourselves but have taken second-hand. Somebody, how- 
ever, has had to work them out. Occasionally we derive inde- 
pendently from given data which we possess a new law, or rule, 
or classification. This process of arriving at generalizations 

1 Creighton, An Introductory Logic, p. 173. 
614 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 615 

through a consideration of particulars we term induction. It is 
a process of deriving generalizations from particular cases or 
of passing from the particular to the universal through the par- 
ticular. It is essentially the process of developing concepts from 
and through individual experiences. 

It is frequently stated that induction is a process of passing 
from the particular to the general, but it should be understood 
that a real induction involves the derivation by the mind of a 
conclusion or a judgment from these particulars under consider- 
ation. Induction is a process of thinking, a process of reasoning, 
and unless the mind weighs, compares, and comes to a conclusion 
from the data involved there is no induction. To consider this 
book and then that book and then all books, for example, is not 
necessarily induction. It is only such if the mind arrived at a 
generalization applying to all books or a class of books through 
the contemplation of the particular books. 

Illustrations. — Here is an apple blossom with five petals. I 
examine several others, and finding the same number in each 
and that the arrangement is regular I conclude that there are 
five petals on every apple blossom. People saw a good many 
swans all of which were white, and the belief that all swans were 
white became firmly fixed. We now know, however, that there 
are black swans. But as long as only white swans had been seen 
the former conclusion was a legitimate induction. For thousands 
of years people believed the earth to be flat and plate-shaped. 
They arrived at these conclusions just as we should do in case 
we had not been taught differently. We never noticed evidence 
of its sphericity, and from every point of view the line of meeting 
of the earth and sky seems to form a circle and we seem to stand 
in the centre of the circular plane surface. 

When the child first perceives things they are experienced as 
isolated things without relationship or laws. Gradually as 
experiences multiply they seem to occur in regular orders and 
sequences, and connections seem to obtain among various things. 
These experiences gradually become classified and arranged 
according to laws apparent to the child. This is precisely what 



616 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

occurs when the adult views new experiences. At first each 
occurrence is viewed singly, but as other phenomena occur they 
gradually become classified. The main difference here between 
the child and the adult is that the adult mind arrives at more 
general laws, which are more correct, and instead of mere chance 
associational bonds that assist in classification the adult seeks 
and finds more causal relations. However, the ordinary adult 
is far from being critical and accurate, and many generalizations 
are incorrect and even absurd. It is only the careful scientist 
who is able to make correct inductions. Even many of his con- 
clusions are apt to be very imperfect and need continual revision. 
The true scientist is cautious about dogmatic assertions and waits 
until sufficient evidence is collected before proclaiming his be- 
liefs. Darwin, though believing in certain conclusions for a long 
time, was willing to collect materials and to observe for thirty 
years before publishing his conclusions to the world. 

Classes of Induction. — There are usually two classes of induc- 
tion spoken of by logicians; perfect induction when all possible 
cases have been examined, and imperfect induction where only 
a limited number of individuals have been examined and a con- 
clusion is derived from this number. The distinction seems 
almost superfluous, for in reality there are very few cases where 
all the individuals can be examined. Nor is it necessary to 
examine all cases. It is not the number of cases but the discover- 
ing of the necessary relationships that constitutes the essence of 
inductive reasoning. The untrained individual often thinks he 
has made complete enumerations — all the cases that he has no- 
ticed having exhibited certain characteristics. The fault with 
him is (i) that he has noted merely contiguous or chronological 
sequence and not real relations, or (2) that because of prepos- 
sessions prejudicing his mind he has failed to observe cases not 
in accord with his theories. What he has really done is to form 
an hypothesis for a single instance and then to enumerate 
instances that support his crude theory. And because of his 
uncritical and easily biased mind he perceives only the instances 
that support his hypothesis. Some farmers, for example, are 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 617 

sure that three white frosts bring a rain; that planting potatoes 
in the new of the moon makes them grow better; and that toads 
and earth-worms rain down. The savage believes that spirits 
eat the food which is left in the forest for their propitiation; he 
resorts to charms, incantations, and sorcery in the cure of dis- 
ease; and he continually ascribes anthropomorphic causes to nat- 
ural phenomena. The child likewise is anthropomorphic, and 
continually comes to erroneous conclusions. All such conclu- 
sions are arrived at because of imperfect induction. 

Creighton gives as a case of so-called perfect induction, the 
conclusion that all months of the year contain less than thirty- 
two days. He believes, however, that cases like this where 
results can be summed into an absolutely correct general propo- 
sition are not necessarily induction. Induction does not "merely 
aim at the summation of particular instances. But "the real 
object of inductive inference is to discover the general law or 
principle which runs through and connects a number of particu- 
lar instances." He admits that "It is, of course, true that we 
shall be more likely to obtain a correct insight into the nature 
of the law from an examination of a larger number of cases than 
from a small number. But the discovery of the principle, and 
not the number of instances, is the main point. If the purpose 
of the induction, the discovery of the universal principle, can be 
adequately attained, one case is as good as a hundred." l 

By mere enumeration we may gain certain aggregate facts, 
but it is only when we classify these facts, i. e., consider relation- 
ships and group according to relationships that there is genuine 
induction. These relationships must also be more than acci- 
dental; they must be necessary relations — conditions that would 
obtain if the group became larger, conditions which one could 
prophesy for the group however much extended. Real induc- 
tive processes consider the why as well as the what and the 
conclusions are based upon the necessary relations. There is 
not necessarily any induction in taking a census, although a 
census should afford data for many inferences. 

1 Op. cit., p. 188. 



618 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Children's Inductions. — Children do much more thinking than 
they are credited with. Much of their thinking has one char- 
acteristic of scientific thinking, viz., independence. Their 
judgments are apt to lack accuracy because they jump at con- 
clusions before gaining sufficient data and they do not try to 
verify them. Many of their conclusions, however, are better 
illustrations of genuine inductions than the echoings of some 
older people. My boy of four said one cold day on reaching 
a park: "Let us hurry for it will be cold here." I inquired 
why. "Because the trees make the wind blow," he replied. 
G., a girl of five, brought me some elderberry blossoms and 
asked: "What are these? What becomes of them?" She 
was told that they become fruit. "Then, do cherries have 
blossoms before the cherries grow?" she inquired. "Yes," I 
said. "Do apples have blossoms?" "Yes." "Do all fruits 
have flowers first?" Then came the statement: "There will 
be no berries if we pick off the flowers." Here we have a per- 
fectly definite chain of induction, and the conclusion was inde- 
pendently drawn from the data at hand. 

When the child says, "I runned," "I singed," "I hurted 
myself," etc., he is applying conclusions reached inductively. 
The course of reasoning is not a conscious process, but is 
just as unerring as if it were a matter of deliberate analysis 
and synthesis. Many misspellings are the result of reasoning 
based upon analogies. Certain values are learned for given 
letters and the inference is drawn that the same values will 
always obtain. The misspelling is not the result of illogical 
reasoning, but quite the contrary. The following actual mis- 
takes illustrate the point advanced: meny, sed, peeple, mutch, 
eny, Urn, axadent, suckseed, ashure. To spell correctly many 
words of the English language one must be able to disregard 
logic and remember isolated combinations of sounds. 

The child, like the savage, is anthropomorphic and soon 
learns to ascribe very concrete causes to actions not visible and 
to forces not understood. For example, the wind is caused by 
some one waving a big fan; the rain comes down because some 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 619 

one has made holes in the sky; lightning is caused by God 
lighting the gas quickly; thunder is the sound made by a wagon 
in the sky, or sometimes it is God groaning or walking on the 
floor, etc. Children develop their own unique ideas on moral 
questions. They are quite certain to conclude that acts which 
are forbidden are wrong and that all not forbidden are perfectly 
right. Through our injudicious methods of correction they are 
apt to conclude that sin consists not in the doing of certain 
things, but in getting caught. Thus the "protective lie" comes 
to be resorted to and believed to be right. Children's inductions 
concerning the Deity, religion, time, the self, distance, etc., are 
all very na'ive, but strikingly independent of authority. 1 

It is a sad commentary that when the child begins school he 
begins to surrender much of his independence of thinking. 
Being set to learning books instead of continuing with the world 
of objective reality, he soon learns to rely on authority instead 
of upon the evidence of his own senses. Again, his questionings 
are silenced by our methods and he ceases to be an alert inquirer 
while in school. The teacher frequently does all the interrogat- 
ing and marks him down for wrong answers and for ignorance 
displayed by his questions. No wonder that he subconsciously 
arrives at the induction: "It pays to be silent and to expose 
as littie ignorance as possible." Verbatim memory for the day 
comes to be the best-paying capital. 

Examples of Induction in Teaching. — Some examples are 
adduced which illustrate the utilization of induction in the 
teaching arts. The discussions here are necessarily much 
abridged. 

Take a tube which is nearly full of water and blow into it. 
A sound of a certain pitch is produced. Lengthen the tube by 
pouring out part of the water and a lower tone is produced. 
Pour out still more water thereby lengthening the tube and a 
still lower tone is produced. What may be concluded from 

1 For some splendid collections of illustrations, see Sully, Studies of Childhood, 
chaps. 3, 4; his Children's Ways, chaps. 4, 5, 6; Brown, H. W., "Thoughts and 
Reasonings of Children," Ped. Sent., 2 : 358-396; Hancock, J. A., "Children's 
Ability to Reason," Ed. Rev., 12 : 261-268; Barnes, Earl, Studies in Education. 



620 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

this experiment? That the longer the tube the lower the tone; 
the shorter the tube the higher the tone. 

The laws of decimal fraction notation and numeration may 
be discovered and stated by pupils themselves. Presupposing 
that the decimal notation for integral numbers is understood, 
the following questions may be asked concerning the expression 
1 1 1 1 1 : What is the value of the second figure from the right as 
compared with the first i ? Ans. Ten times as great. The 
third with the second ? The fourth with the third, etc. ? What 
is the name of each order? Now, how does the third figure 
from the right compare with the fourth ? The second with the 
third? The first with the second? What would be the value 
of the next order to the right as compared with the first? Ans. 
One-tenth. The next? Ans. One-hundredth. What should 
be the name of each ? Now we place a point between the whole 
number and the fraction to indicate the separation. How read 
i ? If I place a point to the left of it, what does it become ? 
ii. i, how read? .1, how read? .11, how read? etc. 

The rule for pointing off in multiplication of decimals may 
be taught inductively. Presupposing a knowledge of writing 
common fractions as decimals we may proceed as follows: 
Write the decimals first as common fractions. 

A. 



_5_ 


*-*- 


JS_ = 


•25 


10 


10 


100 


_5_ 
10 


5 

x = 

100 


_ 25 
1000 


.025 


3 


2 
— x 


6 


— = .< 



0006 



Now writing the decimal forms we have: 

B. -5 -5 -03 

•5 -Q5 -Q2 

25 ? 25 ? 6 ? 

Because the expressions in A and B are equal, their products 
must be equal. Then compare the number of places in the mul- 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 



621 



tiplier and multiplicand together, in each case with the number 
in the product. Pupils have no difficulty in formulating the rule. 
The following illustration shows how the learner may arrive 
at the rule for finding (a) the area of a rectangle, and (b) the 
area of a triangle. Draw a rectangle, for example, one that 
represents a surface of 6 ft. x 4 ft. 











s 

y 


7 

y 
y 
y 








y 
y 
y 


s 






y 










y 

y 
y 
s 


S 











Fig. 41. 

(a) Divide it into squares. How many squares in the upper 
row? Ans. Six. How many in the next? Ans. Six. How 
many in each row ? How many rows of squares ? Arts. Four. 

Then if there are six squares in each of four rows, how many 
squares? Ans. Twenty-four squares. State how you found 
this. Ans. By multiplying six squares by four. What do each 
of the six squares represent? Ans. A square foot. Then state 
the rule for finding the area of a rectangle. By this method it 
will easily be seen that we obtain square feet because we started 
with a square foot as the unit. Similarly the rule for finding the 
cubic contents of a rectangular solid can be developed. In fact, 
practically all of the rules in the mensuration of surfaces and 
solids can be thus built up. 

(b) Draw a diagonal of the rectangle and ask: How do the 
two parts of the rectangle produced by drawing the diagonal 
compare in size? It is manifest that they are equal. What 
part of the rectangle is each of the triangles? How does the 
base of each triangle compare with the length of the rectangle ? 
Ans. They are equal. How do the* heights or altitudes of the 



622 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

triangle compare with the width of the rectangle? They are 
equal. State again the rule for finding the area of a rectangle. 
Then, how shall we find the area of each triangle ? State the 
rule for finding the area of any right triangle, when base and 
altitude are given. This could be extended so as to hold for 
any triangle. 

Examples from algebra are very easy to find. By actual 
division get the following results: 

a 2 — b 2 -t-a — b = a + b 



a 3 - b 3 
a* - V 
a 5 - b 3 
a 10 - b l 



a - b = a 2 + ab + b 2 

a - b = a 3 + a 2 b + ab 2 + b 3 

a - b = a* + a 3 b + a 2 b 2 + ab 3 + b* 

a - b = a 9 + a*b + a 7 b 2 + a% 3 + a 5 b< + a 4 b s + a 3 b« + 



a 2 V + ab* + b 9 

What is the nature of the dividend? Ans. The difference of 
like powers of the two numbers. The nature of the divisor? 
Ans. The difference between the two numbers. Are all of the 
given dividends divisible by a— b ? Do you think a 100 — b m di- 
visible by a —b ? a* —b x and a n —b n by a —b ? Do the last be- 
long to the same class as the first? State what you believe to 
be true, i. e., the law or rule. Proceed in a similar manner to 
develop the law of exponents, number of terms, etc., in the 
quotient. 

As another illustration take the following: 1 

What does a 2 a 2 a 2 equal? What then does (a 2 ) 3 equal? 
What does a 3 a 3 a 3 equal? What then does (a 3 ) 3 equal? 
What does a* a* a* equal? What then does (a*) 3 equal? 
What does a 5 a b a 5 equal? What then does (a 5 ) 3 equal? 
What does a n a n a n equal? What then does (a") 3 equal? 
What does a n a n a n a n equal? What then does (a n ) 4 equal? 
What does the product of r factors each of which is a" equal? 
What does (a n ) r equal? 

The rth power of the nth power of a number is equal to the 
nrth power of that number; this is expressed in the formula 
(a n ) T =a nT . 

1 From A School Algebra, by C. A. Van Velzer and C. S. Slichter, p. 164. 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 623 

In the ordinary Euclidian geometry taught in the high schools 
the method to be followed is deductive and not inductive. 
(Unfortunately it is often taught neither inductively nor de- 
ductively, but is mere memory work — all on faith.) Undoubt- 
edly the deductive geometry should be taught in the high school, 
but it should have been preceded by a course in inductive 
geometry. An example of the inductive method in geometry 
may here be mentioned to illustrate the point of view. Measure 
each of the angles of several given triangles and compute the 
sum of the angles in each triangle. The class may measure a 
good many and give their own conclusions. This is not orig- 
inal investigation for the teacher sets a definite problem and 
shows the means for its solution. 

Geography is an excellent subject for exercises in inductive 
thinking. All the general notions of commerce, occupations, 
trade relations, and of natural features should be built up objec- 
tively as largely as possible and arrived at through the considera- 
tion of specific illustrations. The definition of a mountain, an 
island, or a railroad system should be among the final steps in 
geographical study rather than the first. However, the general 
notion should have been growing gradually through the con- 
sideration of individual instances illustrating each. Physical 
geography offers opportunity for the exercise of more difficult 
inductions involving cause and effect. 

History in its elementary phases is a subject which deals with 
facts which are to be learned for the purpose of later deriving 
generalizations. It cannot be divided up into sections each of 
which leads to a law or principle. It is difficult to state exactly 
the generalizations of history, and the lessons that may be learned 
become larger and broader with the increase of one's knowledge 
of the facts. Its generalizations are much less definite though 
real. The ideas gained from history are at first much more 
isolated. The larger concepts are necessarily of slow formation 
and the teacher should not force the process. He should at first 
be content if interest is secured and a rich fund of facts accumu- 
lated, even though loosely organized. 



624 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Order of Instruction. — The teacher knowing that the inductive 
process is the natural order in which the mind moves, will 
arrange his instruction so as to further the habit and to assist 
in securing as a habit what is not very natural, a critical evalua- 
tion of data. This does not mean that teachers should never 
tell anything. To know when to tell, what to tell, and how to 
tell constitute high teaching art. But the order should be one 
of inductive unfoldment of ideas; a skilful marshalling of facts, 
propounding of questions, and leading the learner to draw con- 
clusions for himself as far as possible. Reasoning either by 
induction or deduction means deriving relational knowledge. 
Merely gathering facts without establishing new relations among 
them is not reasoning at all. 

Now notice that usually the rule is stated at the outset, the 
pupil told to learn it and then given examples for practice. By 
that procedure he is not trained in reasoning but merely in 
computing, according to rule. Proof should come at some stage, 
but that is much harder. That should be considered under 
deduction. He should be trained to think and to work from 
principles rather than from rules. 

Relation of the Text-book to Induction. — Some have con- 
tended that text-books ought to give generalizations only; others 
that they ought to give the detailed facts but omit the generaliza- 
tions and rules, leaving these to be worked out by pupils, with 
the teacher's help. In the first kind of book the particulars 
would need to be supplied by the teacher. This works fairly 
well in some subjects with skilful teachers. For example, an 
arithmetic on this plan would begin each case with the statement 
of the rule and then follow with examples and problems for 
application. All preliminary illustrative material would be 
omitted. Such a book in the hands of a poor teacher would be 
very uninteresting and difficult. Many of the text-books in the 
German schools are of this type. Even in geography there is 
the merest outline and a summary of generalizations. Geogra- 
phies in this country have been of this type, but the newer ones 
furnish much material. The ones which furnish more material 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 625 

are manifestly more desirable than those which are merely 
boiled-down summaries. Only the teacher with an abundance 
of time and equipment can furnish the many details necessary. 
Even then the well- written text-book has the materials better 
selected and arranged than can be done for a particular class by 
most teachers. 

A book of facts with the generalizations omitted is often to be 
found in our newer arithmetics. They are better than the 
book with only the generalizations. However, in unskilled 
hands they produce chaotic results. Knowledge needs classifi- 
cation and ticketing in order to be usable. The rules and 
generalizations fulfil the same functions as words. They help 
to isolate knowledge, to classify it, and to form a centre about 
which to group new related knowledge. A good text-book con- 
tains plenty of material. This material should be arranged in 
a logical sequence, selected according to psychological needs, 
and in such a way that the learner who follows the discussion 
thoughtfully foresees the generalization before reaching it. The 
book statement of the generalization should, of course, be the 
best, and be calculated to clarify and enlarge the learner's 
notions. In many cases the teacher may go over the same lesson 
orally before assigning the text to be read. The book is then 
used to clarify and impress the knowledge more firmly. In 
other cases the pupils may safely be set to work out the lesson 
themselves. A book properly arranged meets their apperceptions 
and furnishes the data necessary for the development of every 
generalization. Every good text-book for older pupils should 
be so arranged that the learner could use it to good advantage 
without a teacher. With a teacher, he should be able to use 
it to still better advantage. 

But back of the text-book in most subjects there must be 
objective experiences gained at first hand. The understanding 
of the text-book is made possible only when it calls up personal 
observations and experiences. To be sure, the new whole need 
not have been experienced, but the elements composing the new 
whole must have been. In the material sciences laboratory ex- 



626 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

periments and demonstrations should make clear each step 
whenever possible. From the very nature of mind it is necessary 
that the elementary notions in all subjects should be built up 
objectively. 

Importance and Use of Inductive Methods. — What will the 
pupil gain by being required to form conclusions for himself ? In 
some cases results would be secured more quickly by simply giv- 
ing the rule and requiring him to apply it. For example, the rule 
for pointing off in decimals can easily be committed to memory 
and its application learned without understanding a shadow of 
the reason therefor. The pupil could quickly learn to perform 
the operation without mistakes and undoubtedly would remem- 
ber it as long as if acquired in a more laborious manner. Then 
what is gained by the more laborious process? Nothing, pro- 
vided computation is the only end in view. But if arithmetic is 
to be "a study which trains the reasoning powers," the pupil 
must use it as a means of reasoning. To learn "that he must 
invert the terms of the divisor and multiply" is a mere act of 
memory and involves no real thinking, but to know why he does 
involves thinking to a high degree. We wish to inculcate 
habits of inductive reasoning. 

Every successful man is a good inductive reasoner. The pro- 
fessor in a science has no monopoly on induction. The business 
man has equal need of forming independent conclusions from 
every-day data. The merchant, the banker, any financier must 
watch daily factors that are liable to affect the markets, and from 
these factors they must draw conclusions as to the course of 
procedure. No rule can be laid down that will infallibly 
guide, for exactly the same factors never enter into combina- 
tion twice. Hence each set of factors should lead to indepen- 
dent conclusions. Since the mind works according to habits 
acquired, it is of the highest importance to give the mind in 
early life as strong a tendency as possible toward inductive 
thinking. 

The dry-goods merchant to be successful has to determine 
carefully in advance what kinds of goods to purchase for the 



%~ 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 627 

coming season. He must be guided by the experiences of past 
seasons and by the present conditions of trade, and by all the 
factors that affect trade. The past season will tell him whether 
woollen or cotton goods sold best, and what grade, and the 
quantity. The present condition of the money market will 
enable him to guess how freely people will spend their money; 
local conditions, as taxes and philanthropic enterprises, will 
enable him to guess how much money will be diverted into other 
channels and how much may be left to purchase from him. He 
must consider the growth of the population of his trade district, 
also the number of competing merchants who have moved in 
or away from his neighborhood; and Dame Fashion must be 
consulted for changes of styles. Besides these a host of other 
factors enter most intimately into the trade relations to affect 
the amount and the quality of the stock to be purchased. The 
merchant who can look ahead, foresee advantages and disad- 
vantages, is the successful one. That is, the one who makes 
the widest, most careful inductions is generally the most pros- 
perous. It often takes a year or years to prove the truth or 
falsity of the generalizations which he makes, and the bits of 
evidence collected in testing his theories are made the basis of 
new generalizations. 

The United States Weather Bureau makes its daily forecasts 
from the data relating to barometric and thermometric readings, 
wind velocities at different points, and the various changes in 
temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, etc. The fore- 
casts are simply inductive conclusions asserting probable con- 
ditions. The judge on the bench, or the jury listening to a trial 
has problems of induction to deal with. The testimony of 
witnesses is to form the basis for generalizations, or, in other 
words, it contains the individual notions used in forming the 
general notions. Similarly in every occupation there is oppor- 
tunity and necessity for arriving at new conclusions through the 
consideration of particular cases. True, in many cases the mind 
cannot isolate the data as clearly nor draw as definite conclusions 
as in mathematical problems. But even in the most "off-hand" 



628 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

guess the mind subconsciously generalizes from data which have 
been previously gathered. Even our unexplainable prejudices 
are results of induction. 

Therefore, how important that the pupil be trained in the 
careful collection of evidence and in weighing it accurately 
before jumping at conclusions! The person who habitually 
decides things too hastily and then spends his time regretting 
his conclusions, reasons inductively no less than the one who 
arrives at a safe conclusion, but the induction of the former is 
imperfect. 

Pupils, as well as scientists, should be taught to form hypothe- 
ses to account for certain phenomena. Hypotheses are guesses, 
but good guesses based upon a thorough knowledge of the condi- 
tions entering into the problem. The hypothesis should be (i) 
conceivable in the light of the facts; (2) it should be in accord 
with the facts; (3) it should explain the known facts; and (4) 
should be of such a character that inductions can be made from 
it. When hypotheses have stood the fire of criticism and have 
become well established they are termed theories. The atomic 
theory and the nebular theory were simply hypotheses or guesses 
which seemed to account for certain phenomena or relationships 
that existed, and from these guesses much actual progress in 
further knowledge has been made possible. The theory of a 
universal ether was at first propounded as an hypothesis attempt- 
ing to explain some problems concerning the passage of light 
and heat rays. There were certain apparently demonstrated 
facts demanding explanation. The hypothesis which was put 
forth presented astounding difficulties of conception, but it has 
proved so valuable in working out practical applications and its 
proof has been apparently so incontrovertible that it has long 
been a well-accepted theory. Even now, however, new hypothe- 
ses and theories looking toward the explanation of many of the 
phenomena of heat and light are being propounded. 

Huxley writes: 1 "The mental power which will be of most 
importance in your daily life will be the power of seeing things 

1 Science and Education Essays, p. 96. 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 629 

as they are without regard to authority; and of drawing accurate 
conclusions from particular facts. But at school and at college 
you shall know of no source of truth but authority; nor exercise 
your reasoning power upon anything but deduction from that 
which is laid down by authority." Again he says: * "No boy 
or girl should leave school without possessing a grasp of the 
general character of science, and without having been disciplined, 
more or less, in the methods of all the sciences; so that, when 
turned into the world to make their own way, they shall be pre- 
pared to face scientific problems, not by knowing at once the 
conditions of every problem, or by being at once able to solve it; 
but by being familiar with the general current of scientific 
thought, and by being able to apply the methods of science in 
the proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with the 
conditions of the special problem." 

Further: 2 "If the great benefits of scientific training are 
sought, it is essential that such training should be real: that is 
to say that the mind of the scholar should be brought into direct 
relation with fact, that he should not merely be told a thing, but 
made to see by the use of his own intellect and ability that the 
thing is so and not otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific 
training, that in virtue of which it cannot be replaced by any 
other discipline whatsoever, is this bringing of the mind directly 
into contact with fact, and practising the intellect in the com- 
pletest form of induction; that is to say, in drawing conclusions 
from particular facts made known by immediate observation of 
nature." 

He further observes 3 that " It allows the student to concentrate 
his mind upon what he is about for the time being, and then to 
dismiss it. Those who are occupied with intellectual work 
will, I think, agree with me that it is important, not so much to 
know a thing as to have known it, and known it thoroughly. 
If you have once known a thing in this way it is easy to renew 
your knowledge when you have forgotten it; and when you 

'P. 122. 2 P. 126. 

3 P. 251. 



630 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

begin to take the subject up again, it slides back upon the 
familiar grooves with great facility." 

Much school work smacks strongly of scholasticism which 
Sir Francis Bacon very aptly characterized: 1 "This kind of 
degenerate learning did chiefly reign among the schoolmen, who 
having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and 
small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells 
of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle, their dictator), as their per- 
sons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and 
knowing little history, either of nature, or time — did, out of no 
great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit, spin out 
unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in 
their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon 
matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, 
worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it 
work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is end- 
less, and brings forth, indeed, cobwebs of learning, admirable 
for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or 
profit." 

The Deductive Method. — In the deductive process a general- 
ization is the starting point and conclusions which accord with 
the generalizations are drawn concerning particular cases. To 
take the classical illustration: All men are mortal; Socrates 
was a man; therefore Socrates was mortal. Or, All names are 
nouns; John is a name; therefore John is a noun. The deduc- 
tive process assumes that through a process of induction a 
generalization in the form of a law, rule, definition, or principle 
has been derived and then new cases are measured by the gener- 
alization assumed. In the ordinary Euclidian geometry usually 
studied in our secondary schools the theorem is the generaliza- 
tion assumed. Although the pupil takes this generalization as 
the beginning and proceeds deductively to test its truth or fal- 
sity, some one undoubtedly discovered the theorem inductively. 

It is very important that the pupils learn to test results which 
they reach inductively or which are furnished them ready-made. 

1 Advancement of Learning, 14 : 5. 



INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION 631 

It is only by verification that the learner should come to a feeling 
of certainty and security in his own inductive conclusions. He 
should also learn to weigh, test, and verify statements furnished 
him by his teachers and his books. There is no certainty that 
when a pupil has reproduced correctly a demonstration in 
geometry which he has been set to learn that he has really gone 
through a process of deduction. He may have approached it 
deductively and learned the forms, but real deduction means 
reasoning, in which the individual derives the conclusions for 
himself. To follow another's deductive discussion is not to 
reason deductively; it is not necessarily reasoning at all. 

High-school geometry furnishes the best illustration of the 
deductive method. The learner starts with the theorem and is 
asked to prove the truth or falsity of it. If he works out the 
course of reasoning for himself he reasons deductively. If he 
memorizes the printed discussion he follows a deductive method, 
but he does not necessarily reason. The fact that the discussions 
are fully written out in most text-books on geometry militates 
against securing the most efficient work in reasoning. The plan 
of the books fosters pure verbal memorizing. If only a few 
hints were given much better thinking would be stimulated. 
The "original exercises" are usually the best part of the books, 
but too often omitted. 

Although deductive methods are more easily apparent in 
geometry than in other subjects, yet they are continually being 
employed elsewhere. Whenever definitions, laws, and principles 
are stated and then tested, or when applications are made of the 
laws and principles the deductive method is used. Grammar 
has most usually been taught by this method. Latin and Greek 
are quite universally taught deductively. In American schools 
the modern, foreign languages have generally been taught by the 
translation method, which is deductive in its approach. The 
pupil learns his definitions and rules, and then applies them to 
the particular words. Algebra and arithmetic have been taught 
more deductively than inductively, but even more as a matter 
of memory and by rule-of-thumb methods. Both of the subjects 



632 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

are excellent instruments for utilizing reasoning processes, but 
when a rule is followed blindly, reasoning is used only meagrely. 
Neither induction nor deduction should be followed exclu- 
sively in any subject. The foundations should always be laid 
inductively. Induction is a method of discovery, of investiga- 
tion; deduction a method of testing, of proof, of application. 
After principles, laws, hypotheses, conclusions have been derived 
through a personal examination of particulars, they should be 
carefully tested and proven either valid or incorrect. It is a 
mistake to teach sciences by inductive methods alone. Induc- 
tion without deduction tends to lead learners to jump to con- 
clusions. They develop a commendable habit of making inde- 
pendent observations, but the observations are apt to be loose 
and inaccurate. When deductive methods only are employed, 
the learner is apt to become absorbed in logical abstractions, 
too much inclined to reason out conclusions from insufficient 
data. The middle-age scholasticism was characterized by the 
excessive use of the deductive methods and a meagreness of 
investigation. The reasoning was correct and fine-spun, but 
often based on unsound premises. The combined use of both 
methods characterizes all good teaching and all effective study. 
In advanced classes the deductive approach often seems to 
characterize most of the work, while in reality the approach 
is also inductive because the students have formerly gathered 
so many individual ideas that they need but to form or perfect 
their generalizations from the individual data. This is true 
in such subjects as economics, institutional history, and psy- 
chology. 1 

1 For further discussion of induction and deduction, see, De Garmo, Principles 
of Secondary Education, vol. II; Bagley, The Educative Process; McMurry, 
The Elements of General Method ; McMurry, The Method of the Recitation. 



CHAPTER XXV 
EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 

Meaning of Feeling. — The word feeling is used in a popular 
sense and in a technical sense. We must distinguish carefully 
between the two meanings. When one says, "I feel cold"; 'T 
feel the wind blowing upon me"; "I feel the contact of my pen 
upon my skin" ; " I feel the weight pressing down upon me," etc., 
he does not use the term feeling in a strict psychological sense. 
He means rather that he has experienced sensations, of cold, 
contact, touch, weight, etc. "I sense it" or "I perceive it" 
would be more accurate expressions. But the expression "I 
feel," much like the expression "learning by heart," has come 
to us traditionally, and like many traditions it is difficult of dis- 
lodgment. When one says, "It feels painful," "It feels pleas- 
ant," "I feel sad," "I feel happy," "His heart throbs with 
patriotic feelings," etc., the expressions are being used to denote 
a different mental state from the ones indicated in the beginning 
of this paragraph. The word in the former referred to percep- 
tion, to intellectual processes. That is, it was incorrectly used 
to designate ideas gained through the sensation of touch. In 
the latter cases it refers not to sensations or perceptions, but to 
the pleasure or repugnance connected with those intellectual 
states. Hence we may define feeling as the simple, pleasurable 
or painful side of any simple mental state; or, as Sully has ex- 
pressed it, "feeling marks off the pleasure-and-pain 'tone' or 
aspect of experience." 

The lower forms of feeling are difficult to distinguish from 
sensations. For example, in hunger just what is sensation and 
what is feeling? The distinction must be personally experienced, 
"felt," in order to be appreciated. No formal word definition 
will make it clear. In the realm of the higher feelings or emo- 

633 



634 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tions it is easy to distinguish between feelings and sensations 
proper. For example, a feeling of patriotism or even of fear 
or anger would never be confused with a sensation. It is only 
when we come to the lower feelings or those which are largely 
physical that they can scarcely be distinguished from sensations. 
But certain selected examples will probably bring out a distinc- 
tion which may be appreciated. Suppose we listen to a saw 
being filed, or that we draw a rusty nail through our teeth, or 
touch a slimy snake, or allow an insect to crawl over the skin. 
We experience the sensation of contact, but over and above and 
distinct from the sensation is a feeling of disagreeableness. 
This something is more than knowledge giving, it is affective, it 
is repugnant. I look at a beautiful picture, or witness a noble 
deed, and I experience a something not merely knowledge giving 
or intellectual, I am pleased. This affective state is a complex 
feeling, really an emotion, which is later defined. 

Professor Titchener has given us one of the clearest discussions 
that we have of the distinction between feelings and sensations 
and which I venture to reproduce. He writes: "Let us intro- 
spect a true feeling, say, the feeling of drowsiness — and convince 
ourselves that it is made up of sensation and affection. Drowsi- 
ness begins, on the sensation side, with a sensation of pressure 
on the upper eyelids, with a tickling in the throat that leads to 
yawning and so brings a complex of muscular sensations,- and 
with a sensation of pressure at the back of the neck (the head 
droops). The lids grow constantly heavier; breathing gets 
slower and deeper, so that its sensations change; the lower jaw 
becomes heavy, so that the mouth opens and the chin falls for- 
ward on the breast (pressure sensations); the neck sensations 
become stronger, the head heavier; and lastly the limbs grow 
heavy, and arrange themselves by their own weight. Sensations 
of temperature come from the surface of the skin, thrills of 
warmth running their course at different parts of limbs and 
trunk. Over all this mass of sensation is spread an affection; 
an easy, comfortable pleasantness. And the affection outweighs 
the sensation; we know better that we 'feel comfortable' than 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 635 

that sensations are coming in from this or that organ. The 
total process then has all the marks of a true feeling." x 

In each of the cases the feeling seems to be a physical process, 
though of course mental. These states seem altogether different 
from those represented by the expressions "I remember," "I 
know," "I judge," or "I comprehend." All comparatively 
simple affective states seem closely associated with physical 
processes. They also seem quite definitely localizable. But 
when I say I remember, I do not localize it; in fact I dissoci- 
ate it from my body. The same is true of the states repre- 
sented by the expressions, "I feel sad," "I feel remorse," "I 
feel hatred," "I feel pity," etc. For the simple, elementary, 
affective states we will reserve the name feelings, and to the 
more complex and seemingly "more mental" ones we will apply 
the term emotions. 

Meaning of Emotion. — An emotion is the complex, agreeable 
or painful side of any mental state. This correctly implies that 
emotions are not different in kind from feelings, but merely 
different in degree. As sense feelings are concomitants of sen- 
sations and simple perceptions, likewise emotions arise in con- 
nection with higher and more complex intellection. Mere sensa- 
tions or perceptions, such as looking at colors or symbols or 
being cut by a knife, cannot arouse concomitant emotions. 
They may arouse feelings of pain. When we apperceive the 
import of symbols which convey some associational knowledge, 
such as a telegram might bring, we may be aroused to the deep- 
est emotion of grief or the highest ecstasy of joy. A good din- 
ner, warm clothing, a good fire, produce sensations and pleasur- 
able bodily feelings, but in themselves they cannot arouse 
emotions. They may suggest higher thoughts and these in turn 
may be accompanied by emotions. Titchener has expressed 
these relations in a very convenient formula, which I shall 
slightly modify: 2 

[ Complex I 
Sensations : Feelings : : j Intellectual | : Emotions 
( States j 

1 A Primer of Psychology, p. 61. 2 Op. cit., p 141. 



636 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

It should not be understood that there is an absolute line of 
demarcation between feelings and emotions. Sense feelings 
doubtless enter into the most highly developed emotions much 
more than we are aware of. The qualitative genetic relation 
is all that is intended in the equation. This relationship is full 
of pedagogical significance. Only a well-developed intellect can 
experience profound emotions. Sometimes there are outward 
manifestations of deep emotions, e. g., love, fidelity, or religious 
emotion, in persons of low intelligence, but they are not real. 
Instead of being the accompaniment of profound conviction 
deliberately arrived at, they are largely imitative outward ex- 
pressions and often belong to egoistic sense feelings. 

Bodily Accompaniments of Feelings and Emotions. — The emo- 
tions when of sufficient intensity are accompanied by certain 
bodily changes. There is usually some facial expression indicat- 
ing the character of the emotion. The whole bodily attitude 
also usually lends itself to the expression of the emotions if they 
are intense. Facial expression and bodily postures are such 
infallible indexes of the state of feeling that we can even deter- 
mine in many animals whether the emotion is anger or pleasure. 
The flashing eye, knotted forehead, contracted eyebrows, and 
curling lip are absolutely indicative of anger, while the opposite 
conditions betoken pleasure. So close is the relationship that 
Darwin wrote a volume on the physical expression of the 
emotions. 

We also have evidence of emotions in the condition of the 
pulse. In general pleasure quickens, while sorrow retards the 
circulation. Blushing and pallor indicate circulatory conditions 
and betray the state of the emotions. A change of circulation 
modifies the respiration and thus we have an added datum in 
detecting emotional states. In joy the breathing is deepened; 
when sorrowing the respiration is weakened and usually shorter. 
We are undoubtedly stronger during pleasurable emotions than 
when depressed. Under pleasurable excitement we are also 
said to be larger or to "expand," while when displeased we 
"shrink into ourselves" because the blood is withdrawn to the 
internal organs. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 637 

Not only is the affected circulation evidenced by blushing or 
pallor, but an examination of the heart reveals that its beats are 
often greatly changed in intensity as well as in rapidity. The 
beats of a "cold heart" are slow and quiet, while in a "warm 
heart" they are the opposite. It is no fiction to speak of a 
heart broken by grief. Sudden joy may sometimes produce 
similar results. In either case nervous conditions producing 
syncope are brought about. Palpitation, or rapidity of beat 
with low intensity, is often a result of strong or sudden emotion. 
So closely related to the most striking psychical states is the 
condition of the heart, that it is not difficult to understand how 
it has come to be spoken of as the seat of the emotions. Sym- 
pathetically through the nervous action the entire system may 
be disturbed. All know that sorrow, fear, or even joy may pro- 
duce a flow of tears, that fear and other emotions may induce 
sudden perspiration, that fear may produce clamminess, or even 
paralysis, etc. 

The Lange- James Theory of the Emotions. — That a change of 
emotional tone might be produced by receiving good or bad 
news every one would readily grant. That there might also be 
produced pallor or blushing, trembling or rigidity of muscles, 
heat or clamminess, quickened respiration, visceral disturbances, 
etc., no one would question. That is, every one recognizes the 
interrelation of intellectual processes, affective tones, and bodily 
changes. But suppose we raise the question as to the order of 
genesis of the three states we shall not find unanimity of 
opinion. It is a matter of common remark that the one who is 
bound down by grief is pale, often emaciated, and ansemic. 
The sequence in which these states follow each other is thought 
to be very direct and simple. " Of course," the popular mind 
says, "we gain a piece of sad news, we are sorry, and then we 
become depressed, pale, and anaemic." 

Professor James explains the interpretation made by the 
uncritical mind in the following: "Common sense says, we lose 
our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened 
and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike." 



638 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

That is, " common sense " asserts that the sequence is as follows: 
(i) The knowledge-giving state. (2) The emotion. (3) The 
changes of bodily condition. Not so, however, say Lange and 
James. According to their view the order is: (1) The knowl- 
edge-giving state. (2) The changes of bodily condition. (3) 
The emotion. Or as Ribot states the case: " First an intellect- 
ual state, then organic and motor disturbance, and then the 
consciousness of these disturbances, which is the psychic state 
we call emotion." ! 

James maintains in his theory that "the bodily changes follow 
directly the perception 0) the exciting fact, and that our feeling of 
the same changes as they occur is the emotion." He believes it 
is rational to say "that we feel sorry because we cry, angry 
because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we 
cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as 
the case may be. Without the bodily states following on the 
perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, 
colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see 
the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem 
it right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry." 2 

The Lange-James Theory Considered. — It may be objected 
that were the theory correct then the assumption of the attitudes 
ordinarily taken in a given emotion would produce the emotion 
itself. To illustrate, an actor going through the representation 
of an emotion would feel the emotion itself. In case of the por- 
trayal of anger, revenge, the emotions of the villain, etc., this 
might entail disastrous results because of the reflex effects upon 
the actor. In case of the portrayal of love it might, to say the 
least, often become embarrassing. The testimony of actors 
varies. Some corroborate the theory by asserting that they can 
not play a part properly until they have entered completely into 
the emotions portrayed. They say that until one lives his part 
he cannot successfully act it. Miss Isabel Bateman says: "I 
often turn pale in scenes of terror and great excitement. I have 

1 The Psychology of the Emotions, p. 95. 

2 Principles of Psychology, II, p. 449. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 639 

been told this many times, and I can feel myself getting very cold 
and shivering and pale in thrilling situations." "When I am 
playing rage or terror," writes Mr. Lionel Brough, "I believe I 
do turn pale. My mouth gets dry, my tongue cleaves to my 
palate. In Bob Acres, for instance (in the last act), I have to 
continually moisten my mouth, or I shall become inarticulate. 
I have to ' swallow the lump,' as I call it." * Even in cases where 
the actor plays a part and does not feel the emotion strongly, it 
is probable that it is felt to some extent. From my own expe- 
rience I cannot conceive it otherwise. When the emotion is 
not felt strongly it is probably because there is such a difference 
between belief and make-believe. That is, in acting the intel- 
lectual state of belief is not really experienced. Were this 
factor experienced, unquestionably the other accompaniments 
would result. Could one be deluded into belief that the insult, 
the necessity for revenge, and the other stage acts were real 
then the concomitant bodily actions would be in evidence. 
Such conditions are actually produced in hypnotism. As before 
pointed out, belief that they are being burned causes the sub- 
jects to feel the pain. Belief that they will surfer no pain in 
having teeth extracted removes all painful feelings. Such belief 
is seldom experienced by the actor or by one mimicking the 
expression of some emotion. If the hypnotized subject is 
placed in any attitude as of prayer or anger the corresponding 
emotion is produced. 

It is the series of visceral organic changes which Lange and 
James contend is the precursor of the emotion. Though the 
outward expressions are intimately related with the emotion the 
attitudes assumed in given emotions are somewhat continual 
and all have become modified through long volitional control. 
Grinding the teeth, though the primitive reaction in anger, is 
not the unfailing accompaniment of anger in a well-educated 
man. His anger may result in a letter, a speech, judicial action, 
etc. But the visceral accompaniments largely beyond the con- 
trol of the will, such as circulation, respiration, temperature, or 

1 James, op. cit., II, 464. 



640 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

the change in secretions, are much more absolutely certain ac- 
companiments of a genuine emotion. James writes on this 
point: "The visceral and organic part of the expression can be 
suppressed in some men, but not in others, and on this it is 
probable that the chief part of the felt emotion depends. Coque- 
lin and the other actors who are inwardly cold are probably able 
to effect the dissociation in a complete way." 

It is quite possible that a part of the actor's work is to learn to 
express what he does not feel. But it is doubtless also true that 
an actor can play certain roles much better than others simply 
because there is consonance between his temperament and the 
part assigned. In fact, many claim that until he does live the 
part he cannot play it. Stanley has shown how completely we 
may gain control over the expression of emotions. He writes: * 
"When the will attains control over expression we may not 
merely repress the impulse to expression when we feel strongly, 
but having no feeling of a given kind, we may voluntarily adopt 
its expression, and this adoption of the expression very often 
leads by association to the real feeling. Again, when experi- 
encing a feeling we may simulate the expression of another or 
even opposite feeling. It is often advantageous in the struggle 
for existence to throw others off their guard by deceiving them 
as to the real emotional state; hence, craft and guile have from 
a tolerably early stage in evolution played a part in the history 
of life." Even animals low in the scale of life learn to practise 
certain deceits. Animals' play often reveals this shamming 
aspect. They frequently tease and scare each other, expressing 
one state and evidently feeling another. Children delight in 
similar antics and tricks. Doubtless the drama itself owes much 
of its origin to this desire to masquerade which the child in 
recapitulating race development so instinctively learns to prac- 
tise in his play. But to grant this does not mean a capitulation 
of the former view. It still remains true that the greater the 
harmony between the ideal and the actor, the more perfect the 
art. 

1 Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling, p. 363. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 641 

It takes no acute psychological observation to note that an 
emotion once initiated is greatly increased by giving way to the 
outward manifestations of it. To bow one's head when already 
suffering grief lowers one's vitality and increases the grief. To 
be sure, nursing the grief through contemplating its cause is one 
source of its production, but undoubtedly the bowed head, the 
curved spine, the lowered eyelids, the drawn lips all are causes 
as well as effects. Who could feel any enthusiasm in giving the 
college yell when sitting down and with head bowed low in 
reverential attitude? At the foot-ball game one's excitement 
increases largely in proportion to the amount of noise and 
motion he makes. It is bad pedagogy to try to secure enthusiasm 
by restricting bodily movement. Soldiers hear the quick-step 
march, their pace quickens and their courage rises simultane- 
ously. The influence of music in war is tremendous. Let the 
soldiers hear a funeral dirge. Their pace slackens and their 
spirits fall. " Every one knows how panic is increased by flight, 
and how the giving way to the symptoms of grief or anger in- 
creases those passions themselves. Each fit of sobbing makes 
the sorrow more acute, and calls forth another fit stronger still, 
until at last repose only ensues with lassitude and with the ap- 
parent exhaustion of the machinery. In rage, it is notorious 
how we 'work ourselves up' to a climax by repeated outbreaks 
of expression. Refuse to express a passion, and it dies. Count 
ten before venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. 
Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On 
the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply 
to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. 
There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, 
as all who have experienced know : if we wish to conquer unde- 
sirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, 
and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward 
movements of those contrary dispositions which we prefer to 
cultivate. The reward of persistency will infallibly come, in 
the fading out of the sullenness or depression, and the advent of 
real cheerfulness and kindliness in their stead. Smooth the 



642 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the 
ventral aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the 
genial compliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it 
do not gradually thaw!" 1 

Although I do not subscribe to the Lange- James theory in 
its entirety, yet I recognize many facts which go to show that the 
various bodily conditions have a very marked influence upon the 
feelings. One with biliousness cannot easily feel in a happy 
mood. Our general attitude toward life is strongly colored by 
the state of our health. With sound bodies and good digestion 
all the world is apt to appear roseate. But a poor night's rest 
or an unusual ache is most sure to give it a most sombre tint. 
There is undoubtedly a very definite interrelation among the 
three states- — knowledge, emotion, action. They are probably 
three inseparable phases of every complex psycho-physical state, 
and it is impossible for them to be entirely isolated. Sometimes 
one phase may preponderate, sometimes another. The exercise 
of any one undoubtedly influences each of the others. An 
exhaustive discussion of the theoretical aspects of the question 
will not be attempted in this connection. The reader who is 
interested may refer to James, 2 Lange, 3 or Ribot. 4 A few 
illustrations will, however, be adduced to show the exceedingly 
close interdependence between the emotions and the physical 
expressions. An attempt will also be made to indicate some 
of the many very important educational bearings. 

We know that in play-acting when assuming a given character 
we tend to feel the emotional states acted. For this reason 
many believe it dangerous to assume the role of a rogue or a 
rascal. Taking the role of a noble character uplifts one and 
stirs lofty desires. Undoubtedly every one is moved emotionally 
by assuming an attitude of prayer or devotion. A boy whistles 
on going through a lonely place at night, and thereby feels less 
afraid. When he has been hurt by a school-fellow or worsted 

1 Principles of Psychology, II, p. 462. 2 Op. cii. 

3 Ueber Gemuthsbewegungen, Leipsic, 1SS7. 
* The Psychology of the Emotions. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 643 

in an encounter, he laughs a bravado laugh though ready to cry, 
and thereby dispels the desire to cry and manages to feel courage, 
which was slipping away. We tell a crying child, "Dry your 
eyes and you'll feel better," rather than, "Feel better and then 
your tears will cease." 

Educational Suggestions from the Lange- James Theory.— The 
educational bearings of this theory are manifold and far-reaching. 
Actions and states constantly repeated determine what one is. 
What one is he comes to believe in and the customary usually 
becomes pleasurable, at least in a negative way. Consequently 
it is good pedagogy to teach children, for example, to assume an 
attitude of cheerfulness, to sit up straight, to expand the lungs, 
to walk sprightly, to have a good laugh occasionally. It all 
reacts upon their moods. For a person to go bent over with his 
back humped up and his chest drawn in is sufficient reason for 
him to become low-spirited. Plenty of oxygen, sufficient muscu- 
lar exercise, and good bodily postures and habits are not only 
conducive to but absolutely necessary to the maintenance of 
cheerfulness. The one who becomes anaemic and nerveless is 
the one who is irritable and cross. Many external conditions 
contribute not a little to one's emotional tone. The weather 
determines, more than we think, the trend of one's conduct. 
Poor lighting is often responsible for not only defective vision 
and bad headaches, but also for much peevishness. Because of 
the intimate relations existing between the feelings and the 
intellectual and volitional states it is important for the educator 
constantly to bear in mind the necessity of securing bodily 
comfort and emotional buoyancy. Heating, lighting, ventila- 
tion all have their effects. Proper seating is a feature too little 
considered. Cramped positions or dangling feet produce irrita- 
bility to say nothing of bodily malformations. Recesses, alter- 
nation of work and play must also be considered in trying to 
secure desirable emotional attitudes. 

Through imitation one unconsciously assumes the attitudes 
of those about him. Consequently imitation plays a most im- 
portant part in the determination of the feelings. A light- 



644 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

hearted person diffuses his feelings among all whom he meets. 
Similarly one who is low-spirited casts a spell of gloom over all 
his associates. Feelings are even more contagious than disease. 
Children are very quick to be inoculated with the moods af- 
fecting the teacher. On those days when children are bad- 
natured, fretful, or especially trying, the cause can usually be 
traced to some external influence — bad weather, an irritable 
teacher, improper lighting, insufficient nutrition, physical dis- 
comfort, etc. 

One of the most potent means of promoting good tone is 
through song. This is largely true because song necessitates 
attitudes and expressions of cheerfulness. This means is not 
sufficiently utilized. Instead of having the children lift up their 
hearts and voices in sprightly song, and in simple melodies 
expressive of beautiful sentiments, the little children are often 
set to learning the science of music ! Desirable as knowledge of 
the science of music may be at a later age, it has no place in 
a child's course of education. Song and poetry should be a 
means of emotional quickening, and this they cannot be if made 
a mere intellectual gymnastic. The science of music, the science 
of grammar, the science of rhetoric, should be deferred until long 
after the child's soul has felt the beauties of music and speech. 
His soul should have been stirred to its depth by the harmonies 
of tone, and the noblest of human sentiments awakened, long 
before he is able to analyze the formal means of expressing them. 
It is indeed pathetic to go into a school-room where the children 
are mechanically learning to name musical symbols, and in an 
equally mechanical way to ticket the parts of speech, when they 
have never been made to thrill with emotion through the singing 
of beautiful songs, or the hearing of literary masterpieces read 
by a skilful teacher. Upon every hand there is so much 
tendency to mechanization. In the attempt to reduce every- 
thing to system no teaching is deemed of worth that does not 
issue in an examinable product. We can examine a child to 
see if he can write the tonic sol fa scale, but who can tell whether 
a child stands 80 per cent, or 92 per cent, in his emotional striv- 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 645 

ings? In our search for intellectual examination material we 
often starve the nobler emotions. 

Relation Between Exercise and Feelings. — Pleasurable feeling 
is usually the accompaniment of the normal, moderate use of the 
body or of the mind. Excessive use produces over-stimulation. 
Pain or fatigue are the results which signal a cessation of exer- 
cise. The child who is given healthful bodily and mental exer- 
cises finds them pleasurable and exhilarating. No healthy 
child desires inactivity. He is continually moving about and 
making investigations. One who follows a healthy normal child 
about for a day or an hour will be ready to agree that over- 
flowing energy and ceaseless activity are among his most promi- 
nent characteristics. Allowed to take their own pace and to 
flit about as curiosity prompts and interest sustains, normal, 
healthy chil'dren are happy and active from morning till night. 
If artificially pushed to excess in any one direction or not al- 
lowed diversity of occupation they lose pleasure, and become 
peevish and fretful. Thus we may formulate the law that 
pleasure is conditioned upon a normal activity along the lines 
of spontaneous activity, and upon a sufficient diversity to pre- 
clude monotony. 

Inactivity except as a means of rest cannot produce pleasure. 
In any case it is negative rather than positive. The child 
obliged to sit absolutely still is a most unhappy child. To 
require a child to do so for long at a time is positively sinful. 
The schools must recognize this fundamental demand for health- 
ful activity. The most quiet school may be the very worst 
managed. The children should not sit for very long periods, 
and not in unnatural positions. Mentally they must be 
provided with something to occupy their attention — not mere 
"busy work," but something that appeals and is worth while. 
How often the peevish child in the home can be emotionally 
transformed by simply helping him to find something to do! 
How many sins of omission can be charged up to the home 
because of ignorance of this relation between activity and happi- 
ness! Many boys and girls have gone to ruin, simply for lack of 



646 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

something to do. "Satan finds some mischief still for idle 
hands to do," and "an idle brain is the devil's workshop." 

Esthetic Emotions are evidently very deep-seated, for we find 
that they are not at all peculiar to man. Romanes and Darwin 
claim that birds are the first in the scale of evolution to possess 
these affective states. They must be well developed, however, 
in birds, as many species of birds are very highly decorated and 
seem to take a pleasure in displaying and observing the decora- 
tions. Darwin says: " When we behold a male bird elaborately 
displaying his graceful plumes or splendid colors before the 
female, while other birds, not thus decorated, make no such 
display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of 
her male partner." 1 He says that humming-birds and others 
decorate their nests, which shows that they must derive some 
kind of pleasure from it. The song of birds must also have 
been developed through preferences for certain aesthetic sounds. 
The standards, to be sure, would not all be approved by well- 
developed human standards. Is it not probable that even among 
fishes and reptiles color combinations have been more than 
merely protective, but that they have played a considerable role 
in sexual selection? The lowest savages manifest aesthetic 
emotions in their preferences for certain colors, sounds, and 
forms. To be sure, the standards would not frequently be 
selected by civilized people. But Darwin says in the foregoing 
connection, that " man and many of the lower animals are alike 
pleased by the same colors, graceful shading and forms, and 
the same sounds." 

Music has its beginnings far back in race history. The sense 
of rhythm is observable in many lower animals. It is universal 
in man. The dance is rhythmical and is the first known art. 
Music was developed from the dance. Powell says: "Rhythm 
was born of the dance, melody was born of poetry, harmony 
was born of the drama, symphony was born of science." Be- 
cause of this order of development we may gather a hint with 
reference to music teaching in the schools. Rhythmic bodily 

1 The Descent of Man, p. 104. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 647 

movements as in the dance and in various plays should precede 
systematic training in music as a science. Music as an art 
should precede. Simple folk-songs learned by ear should long 
precede the artificial note-singing of the school. Music should 
first of all be a language of emotion and not a feat of intellectual 
analysis and synthesis. Classical music is a product of science, 
an evolution of intelligence, and not alone a language of the 
emotions. Music should be taught in the schools for the pur- 
pose of developing good cheer, to inspire with beautiful senti- 
ments, to uplift, and to harmonize the soul. The songs we all 
love most are not those termed "classic"; no, they are the 
simple melodies that anybody can sing, and the music is coupled 
with words which touch a responsive chord in every heart. One 
of the strongest ties that bind the German nation together to- 
day is the universal custom of singing the folk-songs and national 
airs. No home is so lowly but that all can join in the melodies 
and thus give expression to sentiments they feel, and which in 
turn are intensified. How often I have witnessed the German 
soldiers marching merrily at five o'clock in the morning to their 
Exercirplatz singing some of the inspiring national airs like 
Die Wacht am Rhein! Their work is hard, dull, and monoto- 
nous; subordinates are held in strictest subservience; their fare 
is of the coarsest; their boots of the heaviest; their comforts the 
most meagre; the prospects the most uninspiring (so all seemed 
to me), but under the influence of these songs, buoyancy of 
spirits was everywhere evinced, the heavy boots appeared to be 
easily lifted; their songs rang out in the still morning air with 
a clearness and tone of fidelity that carried me in imagination 
to the days of chivalry. Doubtless no other factor contributes 
so much to the love of home and fatherland as the songs which 
are constantly upon their lips. In this country we have not 
learned the value of song. 

Intellectual Emotions. — By intellectual emotions we mean 
those emotional attitudes which are felt toward intellectual activ- 
ity. For example, one may experience keen delight in working 
out one lesson and the greatest distaste in accomplishing another. 



648 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Different attitudes may be experienced toward the same task at 
different times and under different circumstances. These emo- 
tions have an instinctive basis and the earliest manifestation is 
in the form of curiosity. There are, of course, various grada- 
tions of curiosity. The first stage is that of surprise, which 
makes its appearance early in child-life. Preyer has noted it 
as early as the twenty-second week. There is perhaps little 
mentality connected with it, but the shock gives rise to physio- 
logical changes such as raising the eyebrows, opening wide the 
eyes, opening the mouth, and a change in the pulsation of the 
heart. Animals manifest many of the same signs. 

A higher stage is that of wonder. In this there is a concen- 
tration of attention and reflection upon what is experienced. 
Dogs, horses, deer, monkeys, and other animals exhibit wonder 
in the presence of strange objects. If the wonder is strong it 
passes into inquisitiveness or interrogation, as Ribot calls it. 
There is then an attempt to solve the question. The dog on 
seeing a strange object smells it, walks around it, withdraws, 
ventures to touch it, withdraws again, and thus keeps up an 
investigation of his own sort until satisfied. I have seen a dog 
thus study a calf for a half-hour. Of course, there must be 
some marks of familiarity to excite wonder and curiosity. 
Totally unfamiliar objects do not draw the attention nor excite 
curiosity. 

Surprise and astonishment are said by Sully and others to be 
akin to curiosity. It seems to me, however, that they have much 
more in common with fear, which is often a result of a stoppage 
of intellectual workings. The mind seems balked in a train of 
thought or it is suddenly awakened to a new kind of experience. 
Surprise and astonishment have little of the pleasurable element 
in them. On the contrary, it is the pain of arrest which makes 
them clearly allied to fear. Tracy mentions 1 cases of surprise 
being noticed as early as the end of the first week of life. One 
child then seemed to notice his own fingers attentively. This 
is rather precocious. "From this time onward, wonder is con- 

1 Psychology of Childhood, p. 49. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 649 

stantly manifested at pictures on the wall, sunbeams dancing on 
the floor, the fire crackling on the hearth, and especially at the 
movements of animate beings. The infant gazes long and 
steadily at these strange phenomena." Infants of a few weeks 
old stare around at every new phenomenon and every new 
face, often expressing fear at those things which are strange. 

Preyer noted astonishment in his child in the twenty-second 
week. One of my own children on the thirteenth day started 
suddenly when she heard a chirping noise. She looked around 
apparently for the cause. By the twenty-fourth day she fol- 
lowed moving objects very definitely. At that age she watched 
a swinging rope with apparent interest for some time. A light 
was always looked at with great intensity. In the fifth month 
surprise on seeing a railway engine produced such a degree of 
surprise that it developed into shuddering fear. By the twelfth 
or the fourteenth week the child can sit up, if supported, and 
from this time and even before it begins to grasp objects and to 
handle them in a more definite way. 

Real curiosity is early manifest and develops rapidly. Taine 
wrote: " Any one may observe that from the fifth or sixth month, 
children employ their whole time for two years or more in 
making physical experiments. No animal, not even the cat or 
the dog, makes this constant study of all bodies within its reach. 
All day long the child of whom I speak — twelve months old — 
touches, feels, turns about, lets drop, tastes, and experiments 
upon, everything she gets hold of, whatever it may be — ball, doll, 
coral, or plaything. When once it is sufficiently known, she 
throws it aside; it is no longer new; she has nothing further to 
learn from it, and so has no further interest in it." * 

The little child is said to be mischievous when it overhauls 
work-baskets, pulls down books, gets into cupboards, tries 
doors, disarranges curtains, picks up pins, buttons, and dirt, 
but it is merely seeking new experiences. It tears, picks apart, 
and smashes not always to find out the mechanism or the philoso- 
phy of the contrivance, but rather to gain new experiences which 

1 Mind, II, p. 252. 



650 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

are a source of interest. A child of five or six months of age 
will frequently drop an object scores of times, if the object is 
picked up each time, just to see what will happen. He strikes 
the cup on the table with a spoon, and he keeps it up until his 
senses seem satisfied. It is much the same with fire-crackers 
on a Fourth of July, a new whistle, a new drum, or a soldier-hat. 
The experience is continued as long as it gives pleasurable sense 
stimulation. 

Still higher than this curiosity is the kind exhibited by chil- 
dren when they try to find out how things are made or how 
things are done. Different children are inquisitive in different 
directions. One is inquisitive about dolls, another about guns, 
another about carts and sleds, and others about machines, birds, 
plants or gardening. The inquisitiveness varies at different 
times in the same child: one day it is a toy, the next a journey, 
and the next the Christmas holidays. There is no constancy 
of inquiry such as is exhibited by the scientist. The direction 
of the child's curiosity is determined by chance circumstances, 
environment, and direction, as well as by natural tastes. 

In childish curiosity we have the germ of future scientific 
study. Through curiosity the child spies the bird's nest and 
perhaps pokes it, but in so doing learns some things he did not 
know before. He is curious to know how things came to be 
and what will become of them. He wishes to know the use of 
all sorts of things and is continually asking questions, the 
answers to which he may not understand. I have been asked 
by children of five why there was moss on one side of the trees, 
why the moon kept moving at the same rate as we did, which 
came first the hen or the egg, what makes the rain in the clouds, 
and thousands of other questions that only the teacher is ever 
supposed to ask. Now in these questions are golden oppor- 
tunities. The child's curiosity should be satisfied and stimu- 
lated. He should be answered in such a way as to give the 
knowledge and also to start other questions. But does this 
accord with the usual practice in the home and in the school- 
room? Far too frequently the child is silenced by rebukes 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 651 

given as answers. Relatively seldom is he answered in such a 
way as to show him that many answers can be wrought out for 
himself. At best the information is dogmatic in nature, fre- 
quently grudgingly imparted, and seldom provocative of thought. 
At school the child is often systematically taught to consider 
only dogmatic statements. He learns perfunctorily what is 
assigned him and repeats parrot-fashion when he must recite. 
The lesson period instead of inviting questions, represses them, 
and the child gradually learns to conceal his ignorance as much 
as possible. This sometimes comes to be an unwritten law even 
among high-school and university students, and the inquisitive 
one is repressed by the teacher and by the public opinion of his 
fellows. Even among students in higher institutions there are 
too few who are sufficiently independent in thought. They are 
too often satisfied to take down in their note-books whatever is 
dictated and then deem their duty performed if they can re- 
echo enough to secure a passing grade upon it. Instead of inde- 
pendent opinions they are taught, through the methods pursued, 
to gain the words, the garments in which others' opinions are 
clothed. Like all borrowed clothing, such knowledge exhibits 
monstrous misfits. This is a sad commentary on too many 
schools. Education should increase curiosity until it becomes 
scientific investigation rather than stifle it and produce scientific 
dumbness. Ideally the pupil should be the principal ques- 
tioner and the teacher should be ready to lead to the answer. 
The teacher's questions should be given largely to lead the 
learner to ask questions for himself. When the student has 
arrived at that point in his career when he can interrogate 
properly and persistently he is no longer in need of teachers. 
But how many teachers regard their office differently! To fill 
up the mind with certain traditional square yards of arithmetic, 
geography, and history means education to them. Oftentimes 
it produces little higher educational effect than that exhibited 
by the parrot. There is no inquisitiveness, no initiative, no 
independence of thought. I often think that it is mainly through 
their non-school experiences that students have gained any 



652 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

independence of thought at all. So much of their school work 
has been like prescriptions, blindly followed, as a servant does 
a cook-book. In most matters better an erroneous idea if 
independent than the correct one that is merely the hollow echo 
of an opinion taken uncritically from another. The one who 
is critical but in error will correct his errors, but the echoist is 
ever in dire danger of repeating the errors received through 
absorption. 

Sympathy means a condition in which one enters into the 
feelings of another, sharing the pleasures or pains. It is an 
emotion of rather late appearance. Although we are told that 
it exists among the lower animals, it is there of a very low order. 
Except as a manifestation of maternal instinct in the animals 
we find little indication of it. Most animals leave wounded or 
disabled comrades to their hard fate. Romanes believes that 
sympathy is first seen among the hymenoptera. He places its 
first appearance in the child at about five months. Sigismund 
records that he noticed sympathy at the end of three months. 
Sully and Tiedemann believe that they have noticed it as early 
as the end of the second month. But these instances are all 
cases of imitation and have very little of genuine sympathy in 
them. One child will cry when another cries or sometimes when 
it hears music, but it is questionable how far the feelings are 
shared, and still more questionable whether there is a desire 
to enter into the other's feelings, which is often true in higher 
stages of sympathy. At two years and ten months of age my 
boy was looking at a picture of a boy crying, and said, "Boy 
haint got no mudder." I answered, "No, the boy has no 
mother," thinking merely to coincide with his expression. He 
repeated the same thing again, and burst into tears and sobbed 
bitterly. I cannot think it was a deeper feeling than mere con- 
tagion from the appearance of the crying child, for he had 
absolutely no idea of the import of what he said. He knew 
nothing of death or the meaning of bereavement. 

To really sympathize one must put himself in another's place. 
This often requires imagination of the other's states. To 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 653 

imagine anything one must have had a previous experience of 
that thing. One must at least understand the conditions pro- 
ducing the affective states of another in order to sympathize 
with them. Circumscribed experiences often make it impossi- 
ble for an individual to have broad sympathies. There is 
nothing that gives one such powers for usefulness as breadth and 
variety of sympathies. No person in public relations can hope 
to succeed in drawing the masses to him unless he can go out to 
meet them in sympathy. To sympathize with them means that 
he must understand their point of view. The great man, who 
like Lincoln, can perform some act which all the masses can 
understand and appreciate is the one who can gain their sym- 
pathies. They understand the simple, homely, every-day acts 
and therefore their sympathies are enlisted. The more philo- 
sophic acts of statesmanship are not understood, but through the 
commonplace acts, faith is engendered. The great statesman 
who has only this philosophic side, and who can never come to 
the people's level will never raise the people to his level. In 
thinking of Queen Victoria all else is forgotten about her by the 
multitude, except that she was a tender mother, a devoted wife, 
and a dutiful daughter. Because of these characteristics she will 
go down through all the ages beloved by the masses. 

The teacher who cannot meet pupils on their own level, 
though he may be ever so scholarly, wise, and philosophically 
just, will never enlist their sympathies. Many teachers have 
either forgotten childhood or else they never had a real child- 
hood, for the pupil's actions are no longer comprehensible to 
them. They do not and probably cannot sympathize with 
child life. Such teachers should either cultivate an intelligent 
acquaintance with child-life so as to understand and appreciate 
it, or quit the business of teaching. It is lamentable that in the 
teachers' preparation the main emphasis has been placed upon 
the understanding of subject-matter and so little to developing 
a deeper and more sympathetic understanding of child-life. 

It is highly important that pupils be in sympathy with the 
school and its functions. This is often, too often, not secured. 



654 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Pupils feel that the teacher is an autocrat dictating laws without 
reference to the wishes or even welfare of the children them- 
selves. Few openly rebel though many secretly long for free- 
dom. Such need not be the case if pupils are only led to see 
the meaning of school rules and regulations and if they have 
developed a feeling of personal ownership in the school. Though 
I have no patience with the artificial schemes of self-government, 
so called, in which the teacher abandons all rights, privileges, and 
authority, yet pupil co-operation must be secured. This can 
only come about through their understanding of the aims, pur- 
poses, and means of government. They should participate and 
co-operate to the fullest extent possible, but, what is equally as 
important, they should understand that their immaturity and 
their inexperience place limitations upon their powers of govern- 
ing wisely and hence the necessity of acquiescing in those means 
employed by teachers, and school boards. They should be led 
to see that the school is theirs and that whatever affects the indi- 
vidual affects the school, also that whatever affects the school in 
turn affects the pupils in the school. As soon as a correct under- 
standing is gained a sense of participation results. As soon as a 
sense of participation is developed the feeling of sympathy begins 
to grow. 

From the stand-point of social needs it is greatly to be desired 
that children become sympathetic with the various forms of 
political and social organizations. This can only be accom- 
plished by obeying the laws of the development of sympathy, viz., 
by giving a thorough knowledge of those things with which the 
children ought to sympathize. The classes of people who are 
out of sympathy with institutions are the ones who do not un- 
derstand them. Being in sympathy with our institutions does 
not mean being satisfied with everything, but it does mean 
intelligent appreciation of the conditions under which they have 
been developing and are developing, and also patience with the 
slow pace of development. It should also reveal definitely 
that social development depends upon the active co-operation 
of all the individuals composing society. The doctrine of help- 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 655 

ful service needs much emphasis in our homes, schools, and 
churches. 

Fear is an emotion that is manifested early in life. Among 
lower animals there are none that do not exhibit some sort of 
fear. Since each class of animals seems to manifest particular 
kinds of fear, these are probably instinctive. The young of all 
animals are probably without fear immediately after birth, but 
the instincts of fear are simply deferred and very soon begin 
to function. That fears are instinctive, however, is shown by 
the fact that animals give evidence of fear without any experience 
and without any possibility of imitation. For example, young 
kittens show fear of dogs. Sometimes a different early environ- 
ment will develop new tendencies so that those which would have 
developed may never become manifest. Mr. Spalding cites 
illustrations of this in chicks. Those hatched in incubators 
and which see men early are never afraid of them. But if 
they do not see them when very young they later exhibit great 
terror. He kept three chickens hooded until they were about 
four days old and then when unhooded their behavior was as 
follows : 

"Each of them on being unhooded, evinced the greatest terror 
of me, dashing off in the opposite direction whenever I sought to 
approach it. The table on which they were unhooded stood 
before a window, and each in its turn beat against the window 
like a wild bird. One of them darted behind some books, and, 
squeezing itself into a corner, remained cowering for a length of 
time. We might guess at the meaning of this strange and ex- 
ceptional wildness; but the odd fact is enough for my present 
purpose. Whatever might have been the meaning of this marked 
change in their mental constitution — had they been unhooded on 
the previous day they would have run to me instead of from 
me — it could not have been the effect of experience; it must 
have resulted wholly from changes in their own organization." 1 
Spalding tells us that young chicks become terrified at the first 
appearance of a hawk, but that the appearance of a dove creates 

1 Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1873, p. 289. 



656 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

no fear. Ribot states, 1 on the authority of Gratiolet, that a little 
dog which had never seen a wolf was seized with indescribable 
terror on smelling a piece of wolf-skin. Tracy 2 classes as 
hereditary those fears manifested by the child at a few weeks 
of age when it starts and cries at any sudden sound or strange 
sight. Many children cry on seeing dogs or other animals, or 
when it thunders. They frequently shrink back in terror when 
they see a person in black or when they hear a strange voice. 
"A little girl, slightly over two months old, appeared terrified 
on beholding a distorted face; she cried out, and sought pro- 
tection in her mother's arms. It was long before she was re- 
stored to her accustomed tranquillity — the vision reappeared in 
memory, haunted her fancy, and brought tears to her eyes." 

In his pioneer work on fear, Hall gives a wonderful array of 
evidence concerning the instinctive basis of fear. He says: 
"In the past the pain field has been incalculably larger than the 
pleasure field, and so potent is this past that its influence domi- 
nates the most guarded child, in whom otherwise the pleasure 
field should be relatively the largest anywhere to be found. 
Now, darkness and the unknown alike have few terrors; once 
they had little else. The old night of ignorance, mother of 
fears, still rules our nerves and pulses in the dark despite our 
better knowledge. Lacking this latter, children fall still more 
abjectly under her spell. Hence it is that animals found only 
in distant lands or long extinct, robbers, impossible monsters, 
ghosts, etc., rarely present, and never feared in waking con- 
sciousness, bear witness again to the remoteness of the past to 
which some of the roots of this class of fears penetrate." 
Further, " The more I study the feeling of children for animals, 
the less I can agree with Sully, Compayre* and others that the 
hypothesis of ancestral transmission is not needed here. More 
than many others, these fears [of animals] seem like lapsed 
reflexes, fragments and relics of psychic states and acts which 
are now rarely seen in all their former vigor, and which the indi- 

1 Psychology of the Emotions, p. 210. 

2 Psychology of Childhood, p. 44. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 657 

vidual life of the child nor even present conditions can wholly 
explain." * 

Although fear is often shown in the presence of some abso- 
lutely new experience, we are hardly justified in concluding that 
there is a definite instinctive fear of the particular object which 
has excited the emotion. As previously shown, many instincts, 
especially of mankind, are very vague and susceptible of develop- 
ment in many directions. Hence, it is more to be supposed that 
a great variety of objects may produce fear. These experiences 
which come suddenly, without warning, which are violent, and 
which cannot be understood, are the ones likely to produce fear. 
That a cat is suddenly thrown into a paroxysm of fear on the 
first appearance of a dog, while a child might not be, can possibly 
be explained by the fact that the cat experiences a strange and 
sudden sensation of smell. Because of the dulness of the sense 
of smell in the child it receives no sudden and alarming sensation. 
The cat is afraid not because it is a dog, but because it has been 
violently disturbed. It would undoubtedly have been alarmed 
at the appearance of a kangaroo, though it has no racial memory 
of kangaroos. I believe, however, that there are hereditary pre- 
dispositions to feel fear. 

Since there are such strange hereditary tendencies to experi- 
ence fear it is important that all causes which would produce 
violent shocks should be guarded against. This is especially 
important in the years of infancy. It is during these plastic 
years that the formative tendencies of life are produced. The 
infant in the cradle should be safeguarded from sudden and loud 
noises, strange sights, and disagreeable tactile experiences. A 
child with frequently shocked sensibilities comes early to dread 
every new and strange experience, while the one without re- 
membrances of former disagreeable shocks grows to expect only 
pleasant experiences. The former may have latent fears stimu- 
lated and new ones implanted, while the latter will be fortified 
against undesirable potentialities and protected against the 
germs of new ones. 

1 American Journal of Psychology, 8 : 189, 209. 



658 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

When the child becomes older and fears are implanted through 
higher mental processes the same careful treatment should be 
continued. The child then begins to fear through imagining 
harmful consequences that would come from certain objects or 
from certain actions which he is led to believe would be harm- 
ful. The telling of sensational stories is one of the most frequent 
causes of fear in children. Injudicious servants, playmates, and 
even parents and teachers frequently tell children of goblins, 
ghosts, and bogies, sometimes just to interest children, but even 
more often to scare them. The children are not seldom fright- 
ened into obedience by threats of being taken by the bogey man 
or the bears. Soon all dark and unexplored places are through 
imagination peopled with frightful creatures. The child comes 
to dread a new situation and becomes timid and hesitant in 
undertaking new things. If the child is neurotic in addition to 
this psychical condition, he is easily made a coward. Bashful 
children injudiciously treated are frequently made to suffer un- 
told agonies through imagining ridicule or censure. 

A bashfully inclined child, by being repressed and made to 
fear being observed, and through imagination of unfavorable 
comment, can be made a life-long social coward. When we are 
thinking of making Young America "mind" or "to be seen and 
not heard," we should take a second thought as to whether we 
may not be repressing the very boldness which will make for 
social and moral courage in manhood and womanhood. Better 
smile at a little over-confidence or put up with egotism which 
smacks of impudence than repress every manly and womanly 
instinct of courage. There are doubtless thousands of weak- 
willed, shame-faced, limp-spined men in the world who owe 
their condition to fears engendered by overstrict and injudicious 
parents. In order to have made them valiant and courageous 
there would have been necessary only a little protection from 
foolish fears and a stimulating encouragement to have confidence 
in their own powers. To be continually told that one will fail 
in an undertaking is with the naturally timid almost fatal to 
success. It is often unfortunate to have children in the school 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 659 

obtrusive in their boldness, but it is probably more unfortunate 
to have the child utterly distrustful of his own powers. Life is 
so full of real disappointments that no one needs to be harassed 
with fears of any unnecessarily imagined ones. Self-confidence 
is one of the greatest factors in success. 

The results of the use or the abuse of fear may be suggested 
in the following: 



Timidity 
Cowardice 
Bashfulness 
Self-c@nsciousness J 



> < < FEAR > > 

(Negative) (Positive) 



Caution 
Prudence 
Foresight 
Fear of wrong 



It will thus be seen at a glance that to educate the child so 
that he shall learn to fear wisely and effectively is a very impor- 
tant part of education. The lowest form of fear is instinctive 
and directed toward self-preservation. Of the highest we may 
voice the proverb that " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom." Marden says: "Doubt, uncertainty, fear of failure, 
are the greatest enemies of mankind. No man ever yet accom- 
plished a great deed with a doubt clouding his mind. The mira- 
cles of civilization have been performed by men and women who 
believed in themselves. In spite of ridicule, incredulity, and 
abuse they maintained unwavering faith in their power to ac- 
complish the tasks to which they had set themselves." 

The following good suggestions are in entire harmony with 
the teachings of the Lange- James theory of the emotions: 
"'Assume a virtue if you have it not,' is sound advice. There 
is a great deal in assuming the part or character you desire to 
play in life's drama. If you wish to take the part of a successful 
man you must assume the mental attitude, the outward manner 
of one. It is not difficult to pick out a successful man in the 
street. If he is a leader, a man who relies upon himself, every 
step, every movement indicates it. There is assurance in his 
very bearing. He walks as if he were master of himself, as 
though he believed in his ability to do things, to bring about 
results. People are impressed in spite of themselves by a con- 



660 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

fident bearing. They trust a man who believes in himself; 
they take his ability for granted, but they have only pity or con- 
tempt for the self-depreciating doubter. The man without self- 
confidence and iron will is the plaything of chance, the puppet 
of his environment, the slave of circumstances. With these he 
is king, ever master of the situation." ' 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox has beautifully expressed the idea in 
the following: 

"'Twixt what thou art and what thou would'st be, let 
No 'if arise on which to lay the blame. 
Man makes a mountain of that puny word, 
But like a blade of grass before the scythe, 
It falls and withers when a human will 
Stirred by creative force, sweeps toward its aim." 

Anger is an emotion which is displayed early in the child's 
life. Darwin believes that real anger is displayed as early as the 
fourth month. Perez cites a case of apparent anger caused by 
jealousy which occurred at three and one-half months. It is 
difficult, however, to distinguish clearly in very young children 
between expressions of anger, fright, or pain. The cries, facial 
expressions, and bodily contortions are very similar in all. The 
emotion doubtless has an instinctive basis. It is made manifest 
in reaction to a sense of pain or injury. The physical expressions 
accompanying the emotions are too well known to need more 
than mention here. There are characteristic expressions even 
among animals. Spencer says: "The destructive passion is 
shown in a general tension of the muscular system, in gnashing 
of teeth and protrusion of the claws, in dilated eyes and nostrils, 
in growls ; and these are weaker forms of the actions that accom- 
pany the killing of prey. . . . What we call the natural language 
of anger is due to a partial contraction of those muscles which 
actual combat would call into play; and all marks of irritation, 
down to that passing shade over the brow which accompanies 
slight annoyance, are incipient stages of the same contractions." 2 
It is claimed that the various human emotional expressions like 

1 Chicago Record-Herald. 2 Psychology, § 213. 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 661 

clenching the teeth, curling the lip, etc., are genetically traceable 
to more primitive ancestry. Clenching the teeth and probably 
curling the lip are connected with the act of biting. Other char- 
acteristic expressions are supposed to be connected with actions 
of attack or defence. 

It is unnecessary in this book to discuss the manner in which 
outbursts of angry temper should be curbed in children. Unless 
the passions are restrained it is very easy for the child to fall 
into the habit of flying into a rage every time his wishes are 
thwarted. Such a habit will be a source of great weakness in 
later life and will operate against success at many a turn. The 
individual who goes into a blustering rage is a weak opponent 
for the man who keeps his head. In argument or in physical 
contests the angry man dissipates his energy and becomes an 
impotent antagonist. The poet says of him: 

"He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan: 
He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground." 

The child should early be led to see that uncontrolled temper 
will lead him continually into trouble and into doing things which 
may prove sources of life-long regret. As Edmund Spenser wrote : 

"Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath, 

Abhorred bloodshed, and tumultuous strife, 
Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scathe, 
Bitter despite, with rancor's rusty knife, 
And fretting grief — the enemy of life." 

Though we must condemn unrestrained angry passions, yet 
there are occasions when with Lear we should say: 

"Fool me not so much 
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger." 

The child should early be led to look with indignation upon that 
which is base, unjust, and unworthy. He should be trained to 
look with disgust and abhorrence upon conduct that is disgraceful 
not only where personal injury has come to him but whenever 
justice and right have been outraged. Children must be aroused 



662 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

out of indifference to wrongs witnessed against others, into ac- 
tive championship of the oppressed and the down-trodden. The 
habit cannot be formed too early. There is something wrong 
with the education of children of ten years of age if they delight 
in the persecution of animals, in seeing weak children bullied 
and abused by the stronger. Often children tease others in a 
thoughtless way, but no well-trained child delights in witnessing 
or causing real injury to another. Abraham Lincoln, in man- 
hood the emancipator of the lowly slave, in boyhood was laughed 
at as the friend and champion of the poor inoffensive turtles 
which were stoned by the rude school-boys. He was as ready to 
fight for the rights of the turtle as for the oppressed black man. 
Though teasing and bullying are instinctive in childhood and 
youth, I am not ready to admit that they cannot be and should 
not be well under control in the ordinary child before he is ten 
years of age. 

It is only through the development of the feeling of indignation 
against injustice that one becomes the real friend of society. To 
not injure others is well, but not enough; it is only negative. 
One must be positive as well as negative. Proper development 
of this feeling leads one to defend his friends and neighbors, his 
state and his country as well as himself. It leads one country 
to defend another unjustly attacked. It led the United States 
to defend Cuba and the Philippines against an outrageous foe. 
It led the Union to dismemberment when each section believed 
itself to be the champion of certain inalienable rights apparently 
violated. These feelings must actuate the philanthropist, the 
minister, and the true statesman. The feeling is apt to be ill- 
nourished, because personal loss often follows attempts to cham- 
pion the rights of society. Were the feeling properly developed 
in all, our cities would be well governed, our streets clean and 
well-lighted, public sanitation perfect, our children properly 
schooled, our laws better obeyed, justice better administered, 
our taxes cut in half, our public parks increased, public nuisances 
abated, the poverty-stricken provided with work, municipal 
corruption eliminated, etc. But so long as the public conscience 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 663 

is apathetic and we do not feel indignant at public wrongs unless 
we are affected individually, just so long will public wrong con- 
tinue. We are too apt to close our eyes to everything that does 
not strike home. The criminal knows this. Only the individ- 
uals wronged are anxious to testify against the criminal and they 
are easily eluded. But when every individual in a community 
is ready to champion the rights of every other individual in the 
community then the criminal finds it dangerous to operate there. 
We need a multitude of men such as one of our great cities 
recently furnished us in the person of a young lawyer, who 
tracked to their hiding places and brought to the bar of justice 
a whole ring of corrupt city officials. So unselfish was he that 
he rejected the offer of the grateful city of a house and lot as a 
recognition of his meritorious altruism. His services had been 
only in the cause of right and as an indignant rebuke against 
the evils which the city suffered. It was only such service as 
every ideal citizen ought to be willing to render. 

The child should also be taught to stand up for his personal 
rights. To be sure, he must learn not to assume those which 
do not belong to him. But he must learn to know his rights and 
to maintain them. This means that he must not allow others 
to impose upon him or to bully him. We applaud the nation 
which fights the foe that insults her colors and why not the 
individuals that maintain their personal dignity? The boy or 
girl who is habitually teased and bullied is usually one with 
cowardly traits. The one who is cowardly in defence of himself 
will seldom exhibit courage in protecting the rights of others. 
Every one should have self-respect and should maintain it. 
Righteous indignation is not only permissible but commenda- 
ble whenever injustice has been witnessed, whether the offense 
is against one's self or against society. 

General Principles in the Education of the Emotions. — The 
main principle underlying the education of the emotions is that 
we are to seek their control, rather than their repression or their 
undue growth. There are no emotions that are per se wholly 
undesirable, but they may need much stimulation in order that 



664 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

they may develop in desirable directions. All need the refining 
effect of breadth of knowledge to make them pure and exalted. 
In fact the higher emotions are the product of knowledge which 
has come through apperception to possess a given feeling-tone. 
For example, love of country or of home; what are they but 
certain states of feeling developed through knowledge? The 
one whose knowledge of home and country is limited to those of 
the tribe has not much real affection for either. Only the civil- 
ized person with a wealth of meaning gained through knowl- 
edge of these institutions can have much real love for them. 

The highest phases of love are unknown to children and 
savages. The dog is fond of his master, but knows no love. 
The child is fond of those who protect and care for it, but his 
love is not deep nor abiding. His affections are easily gained. 
A bit of candy, a bright colored toy and he is your worshipper, 
i. e., until you are out of sight and then his affections are as easily 
transferred. How many times a day are the child's affections 
transferred from one playmate to another! One minute he is 
friend and admirer, the next, enemy and contemner. Even 
among children in the grammar grades the rings and cliques are 
as unstable as ice on a summer's day. One day two girls are 
chums, thick as possible, and the next they will not speak to each 
other. It has been observed that it is impossible to secure team 
work in base-ball and foot-ball among boys under twelve or 
fourteen. The child's grief is soon over. Even after the loss of 
a parent, the grief is seldom deep or lasting. Others can im- 
mediately gain the place of the lost one. This all means that 
genuine love in its highest phases is impossible without highly 
trained intellect. The adult who knows the worth of the loved 
one, who understands the far-reaching consequences to one's 
own life, is the one who feels grief at separation. 

Shakespeare says of youthful love: 

"What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth has present laughter; 
What's to come is still unsure. 
, . . Youth's a stuff will not endure." 



EMOTIONAL LIFE AND EDUCATION 665 

Hence in attempting to cultivate the higher emotional nature 
we must bear in mind the functional relation of affective processes 
to intelligence. The development of the higher emotions is 
absolutely dependent upon intellectual expansion. They are a 
result of rationalization. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
INTEREST AND EDUCATION 

Nature of Interest. — Interest is an attitude of the mind which 
impels it toward the object of its contemplation. The im- 
pulse is experienced because of a feeling of the worth of the 
object or action contemplated. Interest is usually a pleasurable 
state of mind, but it may sometimes be a painful state. In 
either case it is fascinating and compelling. One who is thor- 
oughly interested in anything has his whole mind actively con- 
cerned with it. Whenever freed from other things the mind 
normally reverts to the object of its deepest interest. Dewey 
says: "The root idea of the term seems to be that of being 
engaged, engrossed, or entirely taken up with some activity 
because of its recognized worth. The etymology of the term 
inter esse, to be between, points in the same direction." * Inter- 
est may be of varying degrees and kinds, from pleasure in cutting 
colored papers, or curiosity concerning geological specimens, to 
intense love for another person or love for a divine being-. As 
before noted, the interest may be a painful attitude. The type 
discussed in this chapter, however, will be pleasurable states. 

In addition to being an emotional state, interest is very closely 
related to the intellect on the one side and to volition on the 
other. From the definition it will be seen that all interest has an 
"active or propulsive phase." There is always an accompani- 
ment of self-expression, an active attempt by the individual at 
the identification of the self and the object of its interest. This 
can, however, only be the outcome of knowledge. To be con- 
crete, if I am interested in a thing I attempt to make it my pos- 

1 Interest in Relation to Training o f the Will, p. 13, Second Supplement to 
the First Yearbook of the National Herbart Society. 

666 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 667 

session, or I try to make the thing, or I attempt to accomplish 
the line of action, doing, making, understanding, possessing, etc. 
Interest makes the mind kinetic, while knowledge gaining with- 
out interest is a static condition. Things which interest us are 
voluntarily and purposely attended to and without external com- 
pulsion. A majority of the stimulations of the senses never 
receive attention largely because they have no interest for us. 
James says: "Millions of items of the outward order are present 
to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. 
Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience 
is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice 
shape my mind — without selective interest, experience is an 
utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light 
and shade, background and foreground — intelligible perspective, 
in a word. It varies in every creature, but without it the con- 
sciousness of every creature would be a gray, chaotic indis- 
criminateness, impossible for us even to conceive." * 

The question of interest is one that has received much discus- 
sion of late. It is a very important question, and its interpreta- 
tion affects vitally one's whole method of teaching, and it is even 
determinative of subject-matter from the kindergarten through 
the university. Even yet it is very erroneously interpreted by 
many. Its answer as exemplified in the daily training of children 
is coloring our whole national existence. Such points as the 
following are involved: Shall the child follow his own pleasure 
in determining what his activities shall be? Or, should the 
educator set up certain ideals, the attainment of which necessarily 
involves the pursuit of activities, many of which may be even 
distasteful to the child? Should we seek to keep the child 
happy or should he be brought to feel the seriousness of life? 
Should pleasure-giving means be employed in instruction so 
that the child forgets that he is working? Should learning 
become as nearly as possible play ? Or, should the play element 
be wholly eliminated from tasks? Again we have the more 
ultimate and equally complex problem whether interest is to be 

1 James, Principles of Psychology, I, pp. 402-403. 



668 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

a means of education or an end. That is, shall the child be 
interested in order that he may understand things, which are 
possibly disagreeable, but deemed necessary for his welfare, or 
should he learn things in order that he may develop or have 
created certain desirable interests in life ? If interest is to be a 
means, then shall we try to secure interest in the thing itself — 
immediate interest, or should we secure a mediator through which 
interest may in turn be secured and through which we may 
smuggle in the otherwise uninteresting? 

Interest as a Means. — The average teacher seems to regard all 
interest as mediate ; a sort of sugar coating which will render 
bitter pills less objectionable. So many pages of arithmetic are 
to be mastered and devices must be sought which will help 
accomplish the end. Under the guise of one thing, if needs be, 
the child must get another thing. New words are to be called 
fishes in a pond; leaves called fairies; geography lessons called 
journeys, etc. The young teacher is apt to think, and many 
teachers of pedagogy lead them to believe, that interest is largely 
a matter of manner of presentation of a subject. It is supposed 
that by proper skill, sufficient smiles, a lively manner, and plenty 
of amusing stories any subject can be made interesting to any 
pupils. The whole interest is supposed to inhere in the teacher. 
To keep the pupils good-natured, to keep them in school, to 
avoid conflict, to cause them to like her, seem to be the dominat- 
ing influences in many teachers' work. They seem to regard all 
effort as opposed to interest. Such teachers seldom care what 
kind of interest is felt in the subject after the task has been ac- 
complished. Will the pupil choose this subject later on ? Does 
he apply it to his daily life with pleasure, or does he drop it out 
of his existence when it ceases to be his lesson? These results 
do not seem to be of concern. 

Interest to such teachers means pleasure, amusement, having 
a good time. They usually feel that struggle, work, overcoming 
of obstacles are antagonistic to interest. In planning to keep 
pupils interested they usually try to amuse them, to relieve from 
difficulties, to smooth the path. "It is often claimed that if 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 669 

there is dulness and disgust with a study it is the fault of the 
teacher. As Mr. Quick says: 'I would go so far as to lay it 
down as a rule, that whenever children are inattentive and ap- 
parently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always 
look first to himself for the reason. There are perhaps no cir- 
cumstances in which a lack of interest does not originate in the 
mode of instruction adopted by the teacher.' This statement 
assumes that all knowledge is about equally interesting to pu- 
pils, and everything depends upon the manner in which the 
teacher deals with it." * 

Interest as an End. — But while it is desirable to produce inter- 
est in order to secure study, interest as an end is desirable. One 
of the great aims of education should be to stimulate abiding 
interests in the studies themselves, and also to make the studies 
lead to permanent and desirable life interests. Spencer tells us 2 
that, "As a final test by which to judge any plan of culture, 
should come the question, — Does it create a pleasurable excite- 
ment in the pupils?" Again he says that if a given course of 
study "produce no interest, or less interest than another course, 
we should relinquish it." McMurry says : " The common under- 
standing has been that instruction is aiming at knowledge, and 
that interest is one of the means by which that aim can be best 
attained; in brief, knowledge is the end and interest is the 
means. But the new stand-point asserts interest to be the highest 
aim of instruction, and ideas to be the means by which that ob- 
ject can be reached; that is, interest is the end and knowledge is 
the means. Thus the tables have been turned. There is now 
a strong inclination on the part of many to measure the success 
of years of teaching not by the quantity of information one 
possesses on Commencement Day, but by the degree of interest 
engendered in the lines of study followed. The attitude of the 
mind toward study is, to them, the most important point." 3 
Herbart regarded interest as the chief outcome of the pursuit of 
the course of study. Not only should interests in the particular 

1 McMurry, Elements of General Method, 5th ed., p. 73. 

2 Education, p. 127. 3 Educational Review, n, p. 147. 



670 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

subjects become deep and abiding, but they should have fertil- 
ized a variety of larger and more universal interests. This is 
what he means by many-sidedness of interest. 

Effort versus Interest. — There are those who feel that interest 
should be neither an end nor a means. To make things interest- 
ing, they say, is to defeat the disciplinary effects which should 
characterize all education. In real life there is abundance 
of drudgery and if one has not been schooled in doing uninter- 
esting tasks later life will witness continuous shirking of one's 
duties and responsibilities. Even James who exalts interest in 
many instances, advises formal training through drudgery. He 
says: "Keep the j acuity of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous 
exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic 
in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for 
no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that 
when the hour of dire needs draws nigh, it may find you not un- 
nerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort 
is like the insurance one pays on his house and goods. The tax 
does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him 
a return. But if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his 
salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured him- 
self to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and 
self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower 
when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow- 
mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast." 1 Now, while 
James is right in arguing for those most desirable habits as a 
result, it will be shown in the subsequent discussion that the 
motives which prompt their formation may be quite different 
from what he suggests. 

Interest in Effort. — Those persons are wrong who deal with 
the case as a question of interest versus effort. It is rather a 
question of the kind of interest. We should strive to maintain 
interest, and the greater the interest, the greater the enthusiasm 
in one's work, the better it will be accomplished. But there is 
no dodging the stern reality that life is full of drudgery and detail 

1 Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 149 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 671 

work, and often interest will not attach to the thing itself or very 
strongly to the details of much laborious activity. The scientist, 
for example, has to deal with long, tedious columns of figures 
which must be added, averages and averages of averages found; 
maximum amounts and minimal differences, average errors, 
average deviations, and the like must be computed; all of them 
processes requiring drudgery which few can stand without feel- 
ing great fatigue. Now were the scientist's interest not above 
and beyond in something more ultimate he would never get 
through the task. 

We do not wish to have the child do things unwillingly. 
Things should not be done because they are disagreeable, but 
neither should necessary things be omitted because disagreeable. 
The two are not mutually exclusive. Every one has felt more 
self-respect many times when he has persisted in pursuing to the 
finish some task involving disagreeable drudgery. I believe the 
farmer boy experiences such a feeling when he finishes well the 
field of corn among the stumps; binds the bundles in the hot 
harvest sun, ploughs the stony field, or repairs properly the bat- 
tered fence. So, too, the child in school feels satisfaction and 
pride when he has a good geography lesson, a perfect spelling 
list, or a model page of writing, even though the mind would 
have feasted on marble-playing, chasing butterflies, making rabbit 
traps, or going swimming. A university student once said to 
me: "I would like to take a certain attractive course, but I have 
started this German; I have had no end of difficulty with it, but 
I feel that to give it up would be like yielding to temptation. To 
fight it out will be to strengthen my moral nature." Who, that 
has any stamina, has not worked for hours to get the right answer 
to a problem or a puzzle, even though the answer were of no 
consequence and was obtained only to be forgotten in a few 
minutes? Certainly the drudgery was not interesting. The 
interest lay in conquering, in mastery of inclination to ease, and 
in the end to be accomplished. The loafer would have yielded to 
momentary ease. The future would have been dismissed. I 
suppose every book that has been written has involved much 



672 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

drudgery, and only a more remote interest has borne the author 
to the finale. Even to think the individual sentences, much less 
to write them, is not easy nor alluring to most people. The 
interest in the anticipated result is what stimulates them to 
action. Every book, regardless of its intrinsic worth, represents 
moral persistence, and moral mastery in silencing the siren 
beckoning to momentary indulgence and pleasure. The indolent 
mind abhors details. It deals in unverified generalities. The 
master mind, although it may soar to heights unglimpsed by the 
indolent mind, yet has derived these generalities from a mass of 
detail which it has carefully scrutinized and weighed and sifted. 
The lazy mind deals with general statements or expressions, 
received at second hand and not with generalized products of 
his own thought. 

There is interest in meeting with difficulties to cope with. 
Paulsen says if we could have a life devoid of struggle, a trial of 
it "would soon cause us to regret our choice, and make us long 
for our old life with all its troubles and sorrows and pains and 
fears. A life absolutely free from pain and fear would, so long 
as we are what we are, soon become insipid and intolerable. 
For if the causes of pain were eliminated, life would be devoid 
of all danger, conflict, and failure — exertion and struggle, the love 
of adventure, the longing for battle, the triumph of victory — 
all would be gone. Life would be pure satisfaction without 
obstacles, success without resistance. We should grow as tired 
of all this as we do of a game which we know we are going to 
win. What chess player would be willing to play with an 
opponent whom he knows he will beat? What hunter would 
enjoy a chase in which he had a chance to shoot at every step 
he took, and every shot was bound to hit ? Uncertainty, diffi- 
culty, and failure are as necessary in a game, if it is to interest 
and satisfy us, as good luck and victory." l 

Interest the Prime Consideration in Education. — All learning 
which is not the outcome and accompaniment of pleasurable 
interest fails to call forth genuine self-activity and does not give 

1 Paulsen, A System of Ethics, p. 260. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 673 

training. Moreover, the influence is not only negative but 
positively dangerous. It produces divided attention and, as 
Dewey remarks, "the theory of effort, as already stated, means 
a virtual division of attention and the corresponding disintegra- 
tion of character, intellectually and morally. ... A child may 
be externally entirely occupied with mastering the multiplication 
table, and be able to reproduce that table when asked to do so 
by his teacher. The teacher may congratulate himself that the 
child has been so exercising his will power as to be forming right 
intellectual and moral habits. Not so, unless moral habit be 
identified with this ability to show certain results when required. 
The question of moral training has not been touched until we 
know what the child has been internally occupied with, what the 
predominating direction of his attention, his feelings, his disposi- 
tion has been while engaged upon this task. If the task has 
appealed to him merely as a task, it is as certain psychologically 
as the law of action and reaction is physically, that the child is 
simply engaged in acquiring the habit of divided attention; that 
he is getting the ability to direct eye and ear, lips and mouth, to 
what is present before him in such a way as to impress those 
things upon his memory, while at the same time getting his 
mental imagery free to work upon matters of real interest to 
him." J 

The greater the amount of interest the better. No one ever 
accomplished much in any direction until he gave himself to 
his task body and soul. The scriptural injunctions: "Whatso- 
ever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;" and "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind and with all thy strength, etc.," 
contain the key to the secret of success. It is not advocated here 
that work should be made disagreeable. Even though a given 
occupation may seem dreary, exhausting, irksome, the whole of 
which this unit is a part should be of absorbing interest. The 
end to be attained should be so alluring that no amount of dis- 
agreeableness could drive us away. As I write these pages the 

1 Dewey, loc. cit., p. 9. 



674 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mercury is mounting daily to no° in the shade. My room 
seems stuffy and almost unbearable, perspiration makes my gar- 
ments sticky, my sweaty hands soil the paper, and the hot wind 
occasionally seizes my paper and takes it pirouetting across the 
room. All these are annoyances, sufficient to drive me from 
writing pedagogics to seek Lake Superior breezes. No one has 
set me the task of writing. I am free to go to Lake Superior. 
Then why do I persist? I answer, interest in the result. I may 
see the necessity of formulating properly certain conclusions for 
my classes next year, or I may be eager to measure my strength, 
to see what I can do. I may be pleasantly dreaming of the con- 
verts to my doctrines, or of the money that will seek my 
coffers. Any of these possible ideas may have become fixed in 
my consciousness. It is the imagined end, possibly a will-o'- 
the-wisp but nevertheless pleasing and soul-absorbing, that is 
impelling me on. While the phantom is bright I forget the 
petty annoyances of heat, moist hands, noisy children, rumbling 
wagons, and clouds of heated dust. I am living in the alluring 
result — I am genuinely interested. As Adams has said : * " The 
theory of interest does not propose to banish drudgery, but only 
to make drudgery tolerable by giving it a meaning. We have 
seen that what is interesting is by no means necessarily pleasant; 
but it is something that impels us to exertion. If pleasure be 
the sole object the teacher has in view in cultivating interest, he 
will fail miserably." 

Holman writes: 2 "All the energy of the self is given up to 
the endeavor to obtain the desired end. There is a conviction, 
more or less explicit, that unless the end is secured the self will 
suffer either negatively (through loss of pleasure) or positively 
(through incurring pain). So that if the end is gained, there is a 
feeling of self-realization, that is, with regard to the experience, 
the self is what it ought to be. This is best illustrated, in its 
extreme form, in the case of faddists, enthusiasts, religious 
devotees, etc." Hence the value of a strong headway of interest. 

1 Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, p. 262. 
2 Education, p. 1 24 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 675 

It is interest that leads the child to chase butterflies and to go 
fishing. It is also interest which impels the scientist to his un- 
ceasing toil, the author to his pen, the politician to his party 
issues, the philanthropist to his labor of love. 

Instincts and Interests. — Interests are primarily a function of 
instincts. Secondarily they are determined by environment and 
education. Of course, interest in a particular object is not de- 
termined by instinct; but the type of interest is determined in 
broad outlines by instinct and heredity. The hound is interested 
in the chase, the lion in stalking its prey, and the cat in stealthily 
creeping upon its victim. The boy is naturally interested in 
warlike, savage plays, the girl in dandling her dolls, the mother 
in sacrifice for her infant child. The child's dominant interests 
are selfish. With the approach of manhood sex-interests', home- 
making and the religious interests, make their appearance. As 
instincts have their periods of nascency, full bloom, and decay, 
likewise interests growing out of the corresponding instincts 
have their periods of birth, growth, and decay. The presence of 
deep, abiding, general interests indicates the possession of corre- 
sponding instincts. Conversely, the absence of a given type of 
interest signifies the absence of concomitant instincts. No one 
ever possesses a genuine interest in any line of action without 
possessing native power in that direction. Persons devoid of 
musical ability never voluntarily manifest a persistent interest in 
producing music. They may enjoy hearing others perform, but 
their interest will be too feeble to impel them to actual participa- 
tion. Those without athletic ability (potentiality, instinct) never 
are deeply enough interested to participate to any extent. Those 
who sit on the bleachers and yell themselves hoarse are not 
necessarily interested in athletics. They are more likely to be 
interested in the sport because of a sort of gambler's interest, or 
because of interest in the institution represented. Genuine 
interest in anything impels one to active participation in it. 

The foregoing facts have an important bearing upon teaching. 
The boy who is not interested in his mathematics and, though 
diligent, cannot become interested, probably has no instinct — 



676 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

no ability for it. The one who is slow to develop an interest in 
languages, in music, or in drawing, presumably is deficient in 
power, ability — instinct — in those particular directions. Lack of 
interest and corresponding ability at any particular period do 
not necessarily mean permanent lack in the given direction. 
Oftentimes a power is dormant, the nascent period has not 
appeared. Unfortunately sometimes, alas too frequently, it may 
mean that a nascent period passed without proper stimulation. 
Frequently when the child is uninterested in his arithmetic he 
has not arrived at the period when arithmetical thinking is 
sufficiently developed. Successful accomplishment is necessary 
to the continuance of interest. The child, as well as the adult, 
who continually fails through inability soon displays distaste for 
that particular activity. At a later time when association fibres 
have matured, relational thinking can be engaged in, and abstract 
mathematical thinking may be a delight. The fundamental 
cause of shifting interests is the fact of changing powers — instincts 
— through processes of development. To be sure, lack of inter- 
est may not be due to lack of ability, but no other cause is so 
largely responsible. Consequently any lack of interest should 
excite suspicion and cause investigation to determine whether 
there is a deficiency of native power in the given direction or a 
defect in the means or manner of approach to the activity. 

Children's Egoism. — The child's early instincts are selfish. 
He cares little for aught except his own egoistic pleasures. They 
are not mere animal pleasures, as of eating and drinking to 
satiety, basking in warmth, and so on. Most of his egoistic 
pleasures are psychical and of a high order. His delight and sat- 
isfaction in mental accomplishments are attested in an infinitude 
of ways, from the repetition of striking a table with a spoon to 
hear the sound up to the acquisition of intricate language co- 
ordinations, making collections, and amassing funds of informa- 
tion just for the satisfaction of knowing and discovering. 

The child's egoistic nature makes him easily interested in com- 
petition with his fellows. This is perfectly healthy and in no 
wise dangerous unless carried to extremes. By degrees the child 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 677 

may become interested in doing things from more altruistic 
motives. He comes to desire to please his teacher or his parents. 
The desire to please his teacher and to stand well in the eyes of 
his fellows plays a very important role in keeping the child indus- 
trious at proper activities. The child whose parents are inter- 
ested in his accomplishments has a much greater incentive to 
work than the one whose parents are indifferent to his childish 
activities. Sympathetic interest by the parent in hearing of the 
child's progress in reading, in praising his writing, his drawing, 
etc., exercise very important influences. Honest praise is very 
desirable in helping to maintain interest. Nobody, least of all 
a child, wishes to do tasks unnoticed. They are naturally inter- 
ested in winning favor, place, or other rewards. Then there is a 
negative factor which stimulates and may even heighten interest 
— namely, the fear of loss of position, loss of caste, degradation, 
or even punishment. The place of healthy fear has been dis- 
cussed under the feelings. 

Growth of Altruism. — Lastly come the altruistic interests in 
which others rather than the self form the centre of considera- 
tion. Although germs of these interests appear early, it is only, 
with approaching adult life that egoistic interests are subordi- 
nated to altruistic ones. In many, shall we say the majority, 
they never become very strong. The evolution of the teacher or 
minister illustrate very well the characteristic development of 
interests from the lower to the higher. Work and study are at 
first undertaken for the purpose of self-improvement, and for 
the purpose of gaining a certificate or license. This certificate is 
desired because it will bring personal reward in the way of 
position and pecuniary remuneration. Later the work is pur- 
sued for the sake of the pupils or the pastoral flock, and later 
still for the sake of humanity in general. Finally the deepest 
religious interests come to full force. This is the highest altru- 
istic interest. True religious interest concerns itself with the 
highest welfare of others as well as of self. Now, through all 
this evolution there have been developed deep and abiding 
interests in each accessory stage, but each one in turn has been 



678 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

subordinated to the next higher one that appeared. And it is 
ever the ideal, largely unrealized, which forms the motivating 
interest. Each lower interest is created for the purpose of 
leading to a higher ideal. We should not expect the young child 
to be especially altruistic. If he is there is something abnormal 
about him. Of course, his egoism often makes it uncomfortable 
for his seniors, but he is simply passing through a stage which 
he will soon outgrow. In race history it has been necessary for 
the young to be selfish as a means of self-protection. It was also 
necessary for the race as a whole during its infancy to be selfish 
for similar reasons. The child is simply repeating this racial 
epoch. With the oncoming of adolescence the budding of 
altruism ought to become thoroughly apparent. This is the 
time for ministration to such impulses if ever they are to be 
developed. 

The Child's Interest in the Concrete and Objective. — The child 
is at first interested in what stimulates his senses. He is at- 
tracted by what he sees, hears, touches; not for what the stimuli 
signify, but out of pure sense-gratification. Watch the babe 
follow a light, turn toward sounds, express gratification at tactile 
contact with things. External objects and parts of his own body 
are handled, just for the pleasure of touching. For a good many 
years the child is attracted by sensory stimulation. What is 
bright colored, full of motion or sound will attract. As his at- 
tention becomes directed toward and centred upon things by 
these means, he gradually learns about things, and then apper- 
ceptive^ he becomes interested in new things which bear a 
relationship to what he has already understood. At this early 
stage it is legitimate and necessary to make things attractive to 
the senses. Bright-colored pictures, various colored letters, 
pleasing tones, rhythmical jingles, exercises full of motion and 
muscular activity, as motion songs, doing things, and making 
things, must be brought into requisition. The child-mind deals 
with the concrete and any education that attempts to foist ab- 
stractions instead produces but a veneering which is sure to 
scale off. As much work as possible in the school-room should 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 679 

be occupied in doing — "learning by doing." It not only fosters 
interest but actually renders knowledge more clear and definite. 
This has been illustrated for several subjects in the chapter on 
training the senses and training the imagination. In arith- 
metic there are multitudes of places where the objective and 
constructive work can be brought into requisition. In denom- 
inate numbers every measure should be handled. The pupil 
can measure the school-room, the wood-pile, the coal-bin, the 
water-pail, etc. All the various problems should be experi- 
enced, at least until understood, before attempting a solution. 
For example, here is a post whose height is known and the length 
of a building or height of a tree is desired. Have the shadows 
measured or the triangles actually constructed until all the con- 
ditions are fully grasped. A half-hour spent out in the yard mak- 
ing measurements and getting all the conditions, instead of hours 
of aimless frittering with the symbolism of arithmetic inoppor- 
tunely introduced, will make the task pleasant and profitable. 
It will mean something and the pupil will be vitally interested. 
Detach studies from life and much interest is sapped from 
childhood. 

It is easy to enlist the interest of children in nature about them. 
Here, as in all cases, apperception is the basis. The farmer 
boy often goes through life seeing little of the wonderful things 
about him, simply because he has never been. taught to see. 
Teach him that geological forces and botanical processes have a 
relation to all life about him and a new world is opened up. 
Give country children a few of the obvious facts concerning 
plant life, growth, circulation of sap, fertilization of flowers, 
relation of bacterial life to plant growth, something concerning 
food ingredients in soil, rain, and air, the action of light on plant 
growth, some of the easy principles of horticulture, fertilization, 
etc. ; gently, tactfully dispel some of the many superstitions and 
saws relating to life and growth and they become new creatures 
— their eyes will be opened, they will be born again. A few 
facts like the above can easily lead them to the perusal of books 
like Darwin's study of vegetable mould and of earthworms, and 



680 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

into a perusal of his Origin oj Species — into science. The first 
geological interest I ever acquired came through being told 
(through chance reading!) about the action of frost upon ground 
ploughed in the fall. My interest was immediate. I wanted to 
know what would give better crops. The interest kindled and 
widened and has not died out. The introduction of the study 
of elementary agriculture into the country schools would give a 
new worth to country school instruction. 

Interest in Means and Ends. — Dewey says in this connection, 1 
after identifying interest and self-expression: "There are cases 
where self-expression is direct and immediate. It puts itself 
forth with no thought of anything beyond. The present activity 
is the only ultimate in consciousness. It satisfies in and of itself. 
The end is the present activity, and there is no gap in space nor 
time between means and end. All play is of this immediate 
character. All purely aesthetic appreciation approximates this 
type. The existing experience holds us for its own sake, and 
we do not demand of it that it take us into something beyond 
itself. With the child and his ball, the amateur and the hearing 
of a symphony, the immediate engrosses. Its value is there, and 
is there in what is directly present. . . . On the other hand, 
we have cases of indirect, transferred, or, technically, mediated 
interest. That is, things indifferent or even repulsive in them- 
selves often become of interest because of their assuming- rela- 
tionships and connections of which we are previously unaware. 
Many a student, of so-called practical make-up, has found 
mathematical theory, once repellent, lit up by great attractive- 
ness when he studied some form of engineering in which this 
theory was a necessary tool. The musical score and the tech- 
nique of fingering, in which the child can find no interest when 
it is presented as an end in itself, when it is isolated, becomes 
fascinating when the child realizes its place and bearing in 
helping him give better and fuller utterance to his love of song. 
It is all a question of relationship, whether it appeals or fails to 
appeal; and while the little child takes only a near view of 

1 Loc. cit., p. 15. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 681 

things, as he grows he becomes capable of extending his range, 
and seeing an act, or a thing, or a fact, not by itself, but in its 
value as part of a larger whole. If this whole belongs to him, 
if it is a mode of his own movement, then the particular gains 
interest too." 

"What use can be made of this?" is one of the common ques- 
tions asked by children. It is not an idle question with them 
either. It represents a deep-seated interest. I have noticed 
children very apathetic over lessons on coal, iron, and other 
minerals, as long as the emphasis was put upon classification 
and other, to them, abstract considerations. But as soon as the 
idea of its utility in the economy of civilization was introduced 
they were all aglow with enthusiasm. They care little for 
classification and scientific principles. They have not reached 
the age for that, but, What is it for ? How is it used ? How 
does it affect them? are all vital considerations. In this very 
instinct lies a very strong leverage for securing efficient work 
from children. Children often imagine ideal states which they 
wish to attain, but if they do not form these images for themselves 
they should be led to build them, for the pursuit of ideals con- 
stitutes the essence of progress. With these ideals alluring them, 
they can usually be shown the necessity of their studies in at- 
taining the ideals. A boy who hates arithmetic but lives in 
contemplation of machinery can easily be led to see that mathe- 
matics is the key to its understanding and construction. Due 
consideration of the relationship between mechanics and arith- 
metic will undoubtedly produce interest in the arithmetic, but 
the road will be indirect. After early childhood our interests are 
very largely incited in this fashion. The boy learns his lessons 
because by so doing he can gain favor, rank, prestige; because 
they will enable him to accomplish something else. His read- 
ing, he comes to believe, will reveal entertaining stories, his 
writing will enable him to write to grandma, etc. 

Children's own stories and spontaneous drawings are full of 
ideas of action, and especially actions related to use. Binet 
records 1 the results of some tests made upon his two little girls, 

1 Revue Philosophique, December, 1890. 



682 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

two and a half and four and a half years old. He asked them 
what they meant by a number of words they used, such as horse 
and clock, and wrote down their answers. Their answers indi- 
cated that they were most interested in the use, and next in order 
came the movements. They seldom described things by color, 
form, or size, but told what it could do or for what it was used. 
Barnes tried essentially the same experiment with more than a 
thousand children and found that their definitions were in the 
following order: By far the larger number from six to twelve 
years, explained in terms of use. Next in order came definitions 
by placing under a more generic term, as: "A dog is an animal." 
Third in order was action; fourth, quality; fifth, place; sixth, 
color; seventh, form; eighth, structure; ninth, substance. With 
increasing age the tendency to explain in other terms than use 
increased. At all ages up to fifteen use was very strong in all 
their explanations. Barnes says: "In looking at the chart of 
seven-year-old children one is struck with the preponderance of 
the definitions of use. Children at this age consider that they 
have told you all about an object when they tell you what it is 
good for. 'A horse is to ride,' 'A mamma is to take care of 
children, and a box is to put things in.' To the young child all 
things exist to meet some of his own particular wants; thus, 'A 
village is to buy candy in;' 'A bird is to make meat with, or is 
good to lay little eggs;' 'A dog is good to catch flies;' 'A mamma 
is good to cook, or to whip little children.'" l 

An illustration borrowed from Adams is to the point: 2 " John 
was a perfectly normal type — clever and very careless. Sud- 
denly the mathematical master reported an amazing improve- 
ment in John's marks. On investigation the improvement was 
found to limit itself to mensuration. Still further inquiry nar- 
rowed down the prodigy to segments of circles; but as those 
could not be understood without previous work, John asked and 
obtained permission to work from the beginning. In three 
weeks he had bored his way honestly through half of Todhunter's 
Mensuration, and was very eager to be promoted to the volumes 

1 Studies in Education, I, p. 207. See also p. 227. 

2 Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, p. 264. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 6S 3 

of spheres. John was now the talk of the master's room, where 
nobody had a good word to say for him except the science mas- 
ter, who reported that John had developed a violent interest in 
chemistry, and was showing leanings toward volumetric analy- 
sis. The whole trouble was afterward traced to its primary 
bacillus in a gigantic balloon that John was projecting. How 
to cut the gores drove him to Todhunter; how to calculate how 
much zinc and sulphuric acid were necessary to float his balloon 
with hydrogen had urged him to chemistry. Balloon-making 
did not make either mensuration or chemistry easy; it made them 
interesting." 

A business man desires to accomplish certain business ends; 
it may be the selling of sewing machines in Europe, but a lack 
of knowledge of the languages stands in the way. He sets him- 
self assiduously to mastering those languages. At first the inter- 
est is not primarily in the German, the French, or the Scandi- 
navian; it is avowedly in selling sewing machines, but once they 
are learned undoubtedly an interest is built up in the languages 
for their own sakes. This probably differs little from the course 
of development of the philologist. He, of course, ultimately 
develops a much deeper and more lasting interest in the study 
for its own sake; but ordinarily he has started out interested in 
making a living, securing certain rank, or with the intention of 
becoming a teacher. Much in the same way one goes to college. 
A college education is a necessary qualification for our ideal 
society, business, entertainment; it will furnish us a passport 
through many desired portals. We shall have to admit that 
these are utilitarian motives, but probably no study is voluntarily 
taken without some such motive. It could not be otherwise. 
Lack of apperceptive ideas prohibits us from being interested in 
a subject of which we know nothing. This is not to say that a 
genuine interest may not be awakened in the study as soon as it 
is revealed to us. After all, are not these higher motives than 
taking subjects simply because one is assigned them by a task- 
master or because they are in a required curriculum? 

McMurry says that "It should be remembered that motive 



684 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

cannot be eliminated from drudgery, and that the way to prepare 
for the latter is to develop, not a formal power, but a strong 
motive. Motive has its origin in interest. Hence, so far as 
instruction is concerned, the chief preparation for drudgery that 
the teacher can give is a strong and many-sided interest." 1 
Dewey maintains that when genuinely interested in the results 
to be attained we are equally interested in all the details neces- 
sary for the realization of that end. He says: "A genuine inter- 
est in the ideal indicates of necessity an equal interest in all the 
conditions of its expression." He further says that the finished 
form is completely transferred over into these special acts. It 
would hardly seem as if this were true. For example, in writing 
this chapter, I cannot see that the pasting together of the scraps 
of paper made by my scissors has any fascination for me, and 
much less the wearisome rewritings; but still, by the ideal 
which motivates me I am enabled to lay hold of this otherwise 
irksome work and almost forget the toil and the drudgery in 
the zeal for giving expression to what I regard as truth which I 
fondly imagine the world to be awaiting. Marking large bun- 
dles of examination papers is a part of a good teacher's work, 
and every one of the craft is interested in being the best of teach- 
ers, but toward the hundredth paper one's interest in that par- 
ticular activity cannot be said to be very tense, though he is sin- 
cerely interested in maintaining a reputation as a good teacher. 
However, whether one is really interested in his trials and 
tribulations because they are units in the accomplishment of a 
zealously pursued ideal, or whether they are momentarily for- 
gotten, is a minor matter pedagogically. The significant fact is 
that because of the relationship of whole and part, and through 
the intensity of interest in the whole one is enabled to buckle to 
and without too much pain accomplish the parts. When the 
end is pleasing and alluring the means either become inter- 
preted as pleasurable because a part of the whole, or are dropped 
out of consciousness altogether, just as an ugly feature is not 
thought of in a friend, with a beautiful character. 

1 Educational Review, n : 155. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 685 

Dewey maintains that even with children activity in any given 
direction should spring from a need experienced by the individual 
in realizing; his higher self. The child, for example, should learn 
to read when he feels the need of it in realizing his ideal self; 
and he should learn the multiplication table when his ideal self 
demands a knowledge of computation as a means of realization. 
This is difficult to see in all its aspects, especially when the child's 
ideals are so vague and fleeting. It would seem as if in this stage 
prescription must determine much of the activity which will aid 
in the perfect realization of the ideal which superiors believe is 
in harmony with the child's needs and possibilities. But cer- 
tainly it is right to secure these relations between work and 
ideals in increasing degrees through life. "The genuine prin- 
ciple of interest is the principle of the recognized identity- of the 
fact or proposed line of action with the self; that it lies in the 
direction of the agent's own growth, and is, therefore, imperiously 
demanded if the agent is to be himself. . . . Genuine interest in 
education is the accompaniment of the identification, through ac- 
tion, of the self with some object or idea, because of the necessity 
of that object or idea for the maintenance of self-expression." 1 

Processes or Results? — The adult does not feel the exhilara- 
tion that the boy does in merely going through processes. The 
boy, the pedagogues to the contrary notwithstanding, does derive 
a good deal of satisfaction in merely working examples, getting 
answers which are speedily forgotten. The more mature one 
becomes, the more remote the interest may be. Children even 
take a great interest in learning words, words, words. Watch 
the child dig a hole only to fill it up again, or cut up paper just 
for the pleasure of the cutting. Their early games have even 
no culminating points — no one to be caught, no one to be tagged, 
no one to be "it," etc. The mere activity, physical and mental, 
is in itself interesting to the child. I have heard children as old 
as five years talk to themselves, incoherently, making up the 
dialogue as they went, for an hour at a time. The same thing 
is illustrated in the child's early babblings. The production of 

1 Dewey, loc. cit., pp. 9, 12. 



686 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

sound seems to be the end in view. It may even be mere activity 
of the vocal organs. In the early stages of learning to read I 
have seen my child of five spend half an hour at a time in merely 
reading the meaningless letters and skeleton sentences, such as, 
"I . . . how — the . . . fly." She did not supply the missing 
words. I have even tried to persuade her to take another les- 
son. But she was reading continuously and would leave no part 
omitted. My boy of ten works arithmetic by the hour just for 
the pleasure of working. In all such cases the process and the 
product are identical — the process is the product, the means is 
the end. 

But we must not be deceived. The great mainspring to 
action in all orders of life is interest in achievement — in results. 
We must not be led to believe that school-children will accept 
cheerfully all assigned tasks because of an inevitable interest in 
action — in processes. It is only when we can cause them to feel 
a worth in the result that we can secure genuine and continuous 
interest. School activities are frequently too far removed from 
reality. Children like to do and accomplish real work. A boy in 
the kindergarten said: " I don't want to play drive nails; I want 
to drive some real nails with a real hammer." Now, too much 
occupation for children is playing at driving nails. Every one 
is more interested in results than in processes of securing results. 
In life it is results we desire. The processes are only means to 
ends. All nature has been interested in securing results. Edu- 
cational theory, however, has erroneously conceived educational 
values to lie in the processes. It is said that the process of learn- 
ing the arithmetic, the algebra, or the Latin, are the important 
things; the resulting knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, and Latin 
are inconsequential, compared with the value of the processes. 
Learning, therefore, is often a purely formal affair. In the 
chapter on formal discipline this theory is critically examined 
and shown to be untenable. Even in manual training attempts 
have been made to exalt the value of the process and to minimize 
the value of products. A little observation of pupils engaged 
in manual training should show that the child is primarily 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 687 

interested in the product. The sled, the box, the Christmas 
present he is constructing make the process worth while. Let 
him be asked to go through purely formal "exercises" without 
making anything and note the dwindling interest. 

Can we not regenerate all our subjects of instruction by 
putting real, worthful results into the foreground? Why not 
have pupils write real letters, work concrete real problems grow- 
ing out of spontaneous activities, study living problems in civics 
connected with every-day life, make geography, like charity, 
begin and end at home, read to know, recite to give information, 
and in all teaching have the work spring out of the demands of 
life and be made to contribute to them. Of course, much must 
be studied which is only remotely connected with desired results. 
In such work it is the duty of the teacher to reveal the living 
relations between the subject and the pupil's life, and to show 
that it will contribute to wished-for results. The boy who re- 
gards algebra and Latin as mysteries evolved merely for school- 
boy occupation is never interested; but the boy who glimpses 
that algebra will unlock hidden secrets in electricity or that Latin 
may contribute to his efficiency as a lawyer is aglow with enthu- 
siasm over the results and is willing to master the processes. 

McMurry writes that "In the business world and in profes- 
sional life men and women work with abundant energy and will 
because they have desirable ends in view. The hireling knows 
no such generous stimulus. Business life is full of irksome and 
difficult tasks, but the aim in view carries people through them. 
We shall not eliminate the disagreeable and irksome from school 
tasks, but try to create in children such a spirit and ambition as 
will lead to greater exertions. To implant vigorous aims and 
incentives in children is the great privilege of the teacher. We 
shall some day learn that when a boy cracks a nut he does so be- 
cause there may be a kernel in it, not because the shell is hard." 1 

Imitation, Suggestion, and Interest. — Imitation and suggestion 
are very potent means of securing interest among children. 
They instinctively exhibit first curiosity and then genuine delight 

1 Elements of General Method, p. 67. 



688 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

in what interests their mates. They are also responsive to bursts 
of enthusiasm on the part of those whom they respect and ad- 
mire. Parents and teachers who cannot warm up over the 
activities that appeal to child-life are lacking in very essential 
qualities of child-leadership. One of the highest compliments 
that can be paid a teacher is that he seems like a student in his 
eagerness. Leadership is more to be desired than policeman- 
ship or taskmastership. "Teaching is really a matter of con- 
tagion rather than instruction. His (the child's) leader must 
therefore be a person of character and self-control. He loves 
his leader and wants to do for him. His leader must be a person 
of ideals who can offer him good and true things to do." * It is 
necessary to distinguish carefully between genuine interests and 
spurious ones engendered through imitation. Often pupils 
think they are interested in a subject simply because their ac- 
quaintances have the same attitude toward the subject. True 
interest can only develop through knowledge. Consequently it 
is only after the pupil has given a subject a fair trial that we 
may know whether or not he is interested. 

Apperception and Interest. — It often happens that pupils are 
not interested in a subject when it is first begun, but after they 
have pursued it for a time it Incomes pleasurable to them. This 
is to be expected. We are really interested only in those things 
about which we know something. Moreover, the more we know, 
the deeper usually becomes our interest. Interest is cumulative. 
While knowledge increases in an arithmetical ratio, we may say 
that interest increases geometrically. This may not be wholly true 
of children's interest because with them so much depends upon 
novelty and change. But it is true of adults. As soon as one's 
knowledge really becomes a part of one's mental system; when 
all activities of life are fitted into this system; when one begins 
to shape all thoughts, feelings, and actions by this knowledge; 
then one may be said to be really interested. The business man 
who sees stocks in everything, the doctor who constantly dis- 
covers cases to enlarge and support his medical theories; the 

1 Forbush, Pedagogical Seminary, 7 ; 341. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 689 

sociologist who discerns a sign of a great social movement in 
every individual's act, is really interested. I say to my students : 
" You will not be good teachers until your days and nights, your 
waking hours and your dreams are filled with thoughts of your 
work and you are possessed with a burning desire to better your 
work, until you have thought about it enough to make it the 
great passion of your life — completely living that life which you 
have erected as an ideal." No one ever arrives at that stage 
of burning zeal and enthusiasm without first having studied 
long and deeply. 

The subject matter must be adapted to the age, capacities, and 
apperceptive insight of the child. Even in the university the 
same principle should be observed. Where entire freedom of 
choice obtains, the student is as liable to elect teachers as sub- 
jects, and often selects subjects for which he has had no proper 
preparation. Every elective should have certain prerequisites " 
for its pursuit. We want the subject to take a vital hold upon 
the individual; he should form desires to pursue it; it should 
become a part of him so that it influences conduct. The 
arithmetic that is never applied in daily life spontaneously by 
the pupil is of little account; the history that is never drawn 
upon to measure present human conduct has not borne proper 
fruit. 

If a child does not become readily interested in a lesson, it is 
better to seek something that will interest him. If he has suffi- 
cient apperception for the given lesson, his readiness to be influ- 
enced by suggestion will easily turn him toward your cause. 
Spencer says: "This need for perpetual telling is the result of 
our stupidity, not of the child's. We drag it away from the facts 
in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of 
itself; we put before it facts far too complex for it to under- 
stand, and therefore distasteful to it." * "Apperception masses," 
according to Herbart, are really determinative of one's interests. 
In his psychology volition is dependent upon ideas. There is 
no independent or transcendent faculty whose function is to will. 

1 Spencer, Education, p. 126. 



690 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

He believes that ideas of right will develop into ideals of conduct 
and that these ideals will become strivings toward virtuous 
action. Hence it is of great importance that the child should 
form interests through the subject-matter of instruction which 
may develop into permanent life-interests. In this view the char- 
acter of the subject-matter of instruction becomes of the highest 
importance. Purely formal instruction in subjects that do not 
touch life cannot develop proper interests in life. Formal rules 
of language, grammar, or arithmetic cannot teach the golden 
rule. Hence the value of literature, history, and other human- 
istic studies. Interest, according to Herbart, is not a means of 
securing temporary attention. Interest is to remain a perma- 
nent and abiding attitude even after the particular knowledge 
has been obliterated from the mind. Herbart believed that 
these interests should be many-sided. 

Self -activity. — We should seek to have the child act spon- 
taneously as far as possible. This does not preclude influencing 
him by suggestion and guidance toward a desirable line of action. 
But we should try to have the child form a desire to reach a cer- 
tain end or conquer a difficulty for himself. When the child's 
self-activity carries him forward, it is astonishing what results 
may be accomplished. They are incomparable with those ob- 
tained through doing prescribed tasks. " The spontaneous ac- 
tivity to which children are thus prone, is simply the pursuit 
of these pleasures which the healthful exercise of the faculties 
gives. . . . Children should be led to make their own investi- 
gations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be 
told as little as possible, and induced to discover as much as 
possible." * 

There are thousands of ways in which their interest may be 
aroused in discovering things for themselves and accomplishing 
results unaided. Normal, active children will even resent help. 
They say, "I want to do that myself." They prove this when 
building with their blocks, when playing their games, in the 
various manual activities, and sometimes even in the school 

1 Spencer, op. tit., pp. 124, 127. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 691 

arts. Who has not seen children delighted at discovering analo- 
gies in forms of objects and in the use of things? Discovering 
the spelling and pronunciation of words, for example, may be 
made a most delightful exercise. The study of plant and animal 
life affords great opportunities for the independent discovery 
of analogies. The child is essentially an analogical reasoner. 
There is ample opportunity in all subjects to have pupils work 
out independent conclusions. Even in history which is so often 
memorized in a purely mechanical manner, questions may be 
propounded which invite independent judgment. For example, 
have the class answer such questions as the following: Should 
Gates have been commander-in-chief? Should Fitz-John Por- 
ter have been court-martialed? Was Hayes elected president? 
Was the purchase of Louisiana unconstitutional ? Was the pur- 
chase of Alaska advantageous ? Was the Cuban war justifiable ? 
A similar procedure in literature would infuse new life into what 
is often dry and uninteresting. 

Aim, Responsibility, and Interest. — A definite aim should be 
inculcated very early in the child's mind. This aim may and 
should undergo metamorphosis with added experience. The 
boy's aim should be more immediate than his father's, to be sure, 
but an aim he should have and that should be tenaciously 
striven for. No child should grow up irresponsible. Responsi- 
bility promotes interest and gives zest to life. The main differ- 
ences between country and city-bred children do not result be- 
cause of differing amounts of ozone which they have inspired; 
but because of the more permanent interest in tasks and the 
greater fidelity to responsibilities placed upon the country chil- 
dren. That is one potent reason why so many great men have 
been reared on the farm. Because of the relief from all con- 
tinuous tasks and from all responsibilities, the city boy has not 
learned to be interested in performing duties. He is apt to be 
interested in the things of the moment, those which compel 
attention, those which are entertaining or amusing. The country 
boy is early habituated to perform tasks because they are duties. 
Work must be done, some one must perform it. His father works 



692 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

steadily. The hay must be cut, or spoil; the stock must be fed, 
or go hungry; the fence must be mended, or danger will result 
to the crops; wood must be cut and brought in, or dinner will 
be late. He hears every one say must, and through habituation 
to work and reflection upon consequences, he, too, learns to say 
that "this and that must be done, and they seem to fall to me; 
I must do them." The city child unfortunately misses all this. 
He seldom feels the impelling "I must," except "I must get my 
lessons, or get punished." But he is seldom taught to be on the 
lookout for work. The assigned lesson over, he casts himself 
adrift, oftentimes to be caught in currents that lead to mischief. 
The country child has few playmates and few playthings; the 
city child has so many that he is surfeited with them and ceases 
to be interested in them. Compare the boy who makes a sled 
with the one who has his sled and all other toys bought for him. 
The one is interested in achieving an end, the other is merely 
temporarily amused. Compare the boy who makes a collection 
of eggs with the one who merely goes to the museum. The 
one who collects will have deeper, healthier interests than the one 
who can go at any time but who has never attempted to make a 
miniature museum. The girl who has some part in making her 
own dolls secures a satisfaction that is unapproachable by the 
poor rich child who is merely a spectator. The pleasure of being 
a spectator in these directions is almost as proportionally "unde- 
sirable as being a spectator instead of a participant in a feast. 
On the farm it is comparatively easy to promote interests in a va- 
riety of directions. With little suggestion the child can be made 
to have a deep interest in animals and plants. One of the surest 
ways to launch these interests is to make the child a copartner, a 
profit sharer. Had farmers any pedagogical tact there would 
be little difficulty in keeping boys on the farm. Could certain 
patches of ground be set apart for the boys' own use, could cer- 
tain animals be given them to care for and to own, they would 
not only be interested in those projects but they would become 
identified with the interests of the whole farm. There, as in 
every walk of life, no one wants to be merely a spectator. Of 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 693 

course the social question enters here, but the same rule must 
apply; make the young people copartners in working out better 
social relations. Prescription without co-operation is fatal here 
as elsewhere. No greater enthusiasm has ever been kindled in 
my own life than in the co-operative attempts at evolving a 
country lyceum, and in the attempt to work out with my father 
better methods of raising certain crops. 

One of the gravest mistakes in the present-day education from 
the kindergarten through the university is the failure to impress 
thoroughly the duty of individual responsibility. It has come 
about largely through a misinterpretation of the doctrine of 
interest and the belief that the child develops a better type of 
will when freed from restraint. Freedom from restraint has 
come to mean absolvence from duties and from training. On 
every hand the doctrine is spread that we ought to follow the 
lead of the child's interest. This is good pedagogy when we 
follow a child's interest which has come about through a healthy 
and normal development. But there are many perverted and 
unhealthful interests. It is manifestly wrong to accede to the 
child's wishes in such cases, simply because he is interested. 
Moreover many apparent interests are mere passing whims. 
I believe it is as important that the parent and teacher create 
interests, as that they permit children to follow their own inter- 
ests. More than that, the teacher and parent should instil it into 
the minds of children that it is a duty incumbent on them to be 
interested in right, important, and uplifting things. 

I believe it is not due to a fit of indigestion that I am led 
to feel that children of the present are not sufficiently indoctri- 
nated with the idea of duty and individual responsibility. Is 
it not manifest in all grades of school ? Is it not manifest in the 
university ? And is it not discernible in the home ? The child 
goes to school and performs his tasks because he is entertained, 
and as soon as the teacher fails as an entertainment committee 
the child says mentally, and even openly charges, that because 
the teacher is not interesting he is not obliged to be attentive. 
His assigned work over, he is in mischief. He has not been 



694 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

taught to set himself to work. In the high schools and colleges 
the youth often puts himself in a contest with the teacher, saying: 
"Now if you entertain me, I'll keep awake and I'll attend your 
classes. If not, I'll bring discredit upon you by going to sleep, 
or I'll elect a course somewhere else." Now the collegian who 
does not maintain an interest by his own initiative ought not to 
be in class. The adult who goes to sleep during a lecture or in 
church is in the kindergarten stage and ought to be in the 
kindergarten. His presence ought to be evidence that he is to 
co-operate. Duty is not taught best through preaching. The 
habit of attending to regularly recurring work is what teaches 
duty, just as the habit of being polite teaches one to be 
polite. 

President Faunce expresses gratification that pupils learned 
"In the days of narrow outlook and wearisome drill at least to 
possess courage in the face of obstacles, and patience under 
monotony, and resolution to rise after falling, and that some- 
thing of the granite of the New England hills was in the training 
of the old New England teacher. We need not invent difficulties 
for pupils. But we need not hide their existence. Unless our 
pupils learn 'to endure hardness as a good soldier,' they are not 
prepared for real life. In pleading for variety of approach to 
the pupil, we are not praising the dictum of Rousseau that 
'duty and obligation should never be mentioned to a child,' 
and we are not endorsing the soft pedagogics of our time, or the 
'flower-pot' education which would shelter the child from the 
sterner facts of life. When we find Robert Louis Stevenson 
writing from his bed in Samoa: 'To me the medicine bottles on 
my chimney and the blood on my handkerchief are accidents; 
they do not color my view of life,' we are reading the record of a 
soul that had been educated by more than games and toys, and 
had triumphed over care, and fear and pain. We shall never 
discover in our schools those pupils who are destined to be re- 
formers, patriots, statesmen, leaders in moral enterprise, unless 
we sound the eternal note of duty, face unflinchingly the ethical 
facts of the universe, and in appealing to 'interest' remember 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 695 

that the profoundest of all human interests is the interest in the 
triumph of righteousness in all the earth." x 

Co-operation of parents with teachers is one of the surest 
means of producing genuine interest in school-work. The par- 
ent who does not know what his children are doing every day 
in school must not be surprised if some day the child plays 
truant or becomes apathetic toward his studies. I have never 
known many cases where parents were intelligently interested 
in the child's progress in which the child himself was not like- 
wise interested. Many fathers are too absorbed in their banks, 
their merchandise, their railroad, to know anything about their 
children. They scarcely ever see them by daylight and never 
have time to talk with them and really know what they are doing. 
One-half the interest and concern that many a father accords to 
his trotting horse, his yacht, his automobile, his favorite base-ball 
team, accorded to an identification of interests with his children 
would work wonders in child saving. No wonder that the in- 
dictment is sometimes made that many men are successful in 
all kinds of business except rearing boys and girls properly. 

Interest in Self -improvement. — Boys ought to be taught to 
be as absorbed and interested in their school-work as they 
would be if working for wages and trying to capture a bank 
presidency. School-work is apt to be done as prescribed tasks 
which it is deemed honorable to shirk if possible. Parents 
should take the same pains to have children please others and 
to succeed in school as if in a mercantile establishment. A 
false code of school ethics has sprung up. Children should be" 
taught to do with all their mind and will and strength whatever^) 
seems right to do. Pitch in and interest follows. No one will 
ever get up a white heat of interest by waiting for interest to 
come before beginning a task. Assume the attitude of interest 
and interest will follow, is the Lange- James law of feeling, and 
it is certainly operative here. 

Young people should learn to set themselves to work. There 
will not always be some one around creating artificial incen- 

1 School Review, 8 : 577. 



696 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tives to work, hence the necessity of learning to throw one's 
self into work, believing that interest will follow as soon as one 
becomes warmed up to his task. Far too much stress is placed 
upon making things interesting for pupils and too little upon 
enlisting their own interest and effort. Pupils are virtually 
taught that they are absolved from all personal responsibility 
and are to look to the teacher to create all interest. This is a 
pernicious doctrine. I have watched the career of several boys 
who have grown up with this idea firmly implanted in their 
minds. To all advice that they ought to pitch in because there 
was a personal obligation resting upon them to help their parents 
and also to make something of themselves, their only answer 
was, "I don't have to because I don't like that." They have 
reached middle life and are still seeking something which they will 
like. They have drifted from occupation to occupation, and from 
occupation to idleness, and nothing, not even idleness, has been 
more than momentarily interesting. This is the inevitable 
result of making pleasure the sole object of life. The pleasure- 
seeker is the least interested and most miserable being alive. 
Teach the children responsibility and obligation to self and to 
society and unflagging persistence in accomplishing in the best 
way "whatsoever their hands find to do" and the matter of 
interest will in adult life largely care for itself. 

President Eliot said 1 that "Education for efficiency should 
supply every pupil with the motive power of some enthusiasm 
or devotion. The real motive power in every human life, and 
in all national life, is sentiment, and the highest efficiency cannot 
be produced in any human being unless his whole character and 
his whole activity be dominated by some sentiment or passion. 
An evil passion may give great physical and intellectual powers 
a terrible efficiency. A good passion can make ordinary talents 
extraordinarily effective. A life without a prevailing enthusiasm 
is sure not to rise to its highest level. These private enthusiasms 
or devotions are fortunately almost as various as are the char- 
acters of men." 

1 Journal of Pedagogy, 17 : 112. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 697 

By the age of eleven or twelve years children should begin to 
feel a duty in being interested in worthy things. Something is 
wrong when a child of that age will take no responsibility in 
interesting himself; when he goes to school and throws the entire 
burden upon the teacher. He has no right to say that "the 
teacher is dry and uninteresting, therefore my responsibility for 
attentiveness ends." He is morally responsible for finding some 
interest through proper diligence and application. As previously 
suggested, teachers are often to blame for leading pupils to think 
of them as an entertainment committee. At best their stock of 
entertainment is not perennial and the time will come when 
interest, if present at all, must be a result of accumulated knowl- 
edge in the pupil's own mind. What the teacher or the books 
impart in a serious, undramatic, matter-of-fact manner will only 
prove interesting if the new ideas find congenial companionship 
through previously assimilated knowledge. The new notes can 
only vibrate in unison and harmony if the mind has previously 
been attuned through similar notes. 

Students have no right to expect to be merely entertained. 
They should feel it incumbent upon themselves to contribute 
their share toward self-interest and also to class interest. With 
the wealth of well-written books now accessible high-school and 
college students ought to progress and maintain healthy interests 
in their studies, even with very indifferent teachers. This is not 
an apology for poor teaching. The teacher's duty in helping 
to maintain interest is in no way lessened. But it takes two 
parties to maintain good class-work — a good teacher and a 
responsive, responsible class. An irresponsible-minded class 
becomes much like the kindergarten children above mentioned, 
even under good tuition. The pupil must learn that interest 
comes through aim, responsibility, responsiveness, and apper- 
ception. 

In cases where children are coddled in the attempt to make all 
things interesting " there is oscillation of excitement and apathy. 
The child alternates between periods of over-stimulation and of 
inertness. It is a condition realized in some so-called kinder- 



698 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

gartens. Moreover, this excitation of any particular organ, as 
eye or ear, by itself, creates an abiding demand for such stimula- 
tion. It is as possible to create an appetite on the part of the 
eye or the ear for pleasurable stimulation as it is on the part of 
the taste. Some kindergarten children are as dependent upon 
the recurrent presence of bright colors or agreeable sounds as 
the drunkard is upon his dram. It is this which accounts for 
the distraction and dissipation of energy so characteristic of such 
children, and for their dependence upon external suggestion." * 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews believes that at present in this 
country there is too much dependence upon involuntary atten- 
tion. That is, there is too much stress laid upon pleasing 
children. Too many boys and girls after leaving school, he 
writes, 2 have a disinclination to make earnest effort of any kind. 
"They have not the power of strong exertion. They lack cour- 
age, resolution, 'sand.' They are afraid to take the initiative. 
The typical pupil of to-day must be interested (amused) before 
he can act. The pedagogy of gush has brought him to look to 
his teacher for interest, and not to find it in himself. It is 
beaten into his mind that his teacher must keep him attentive. 
If a suggested task is not interesting (pleasing) he cannot think 
of it as having any claims upon him. Little of the tonic that 
comes from driving the will to perform unpleasant duties is 
ever given him." 

The child should not be led to expect to be amused all his 
life. He should learn to do properly things which constituted 
authority demands and thus build up right habits. Habits will 
beget interest through the law of overcoming resistance and 
through apperception. How many pupils in school work them- 
selves up to that degree of interest where they take themselves 
in hand? They do this in other directions, as in base-ball, foot- 
ball, and other games and sports, and with great results. 

Did it ever occur to you how unnecessarily long pupils may 
pursue some subjects and not learn them well after all ? Take 
penmanship, for example. Most schools devote to this subject 

1 Dewey, loc. cit.. p. n. 2 Educational Review, March, 1901. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 699 

one period of fifteen or twenty minutes daily for eight or nine 
years, and then not half the pupils can write a legible, rapid hand. 
At one time I began to reflect on the wasteful, half-hearted, 
abortive process. I watched the daily evolutions of these young 
soldiers going through the aimless (to them) manoeuvres. They 
expected that they would have to do the same for eight years, 
anyway. Time enough later on to improve. Do as little as 
possible now. I tried an experiment. The pupils were told 
that penmanship would be a required exercise until they could 
write a plain, legible hand with fair rapidity. As soon as this 
degree of proficiency could be attained and manifested in their 
usual work each one should be excused. The results were 
amazing. Soon there were self-seeking candidates for the 
privilege of being excused. They began to coach themselves. 
They now had a desirable aim which enlisted their deepest 
interest. They asked for information and help instead of being 
unwilling recipients. The majority of the pupils were excused 
in either the fourth or fifth grades, and seldom was one demoted 
for further dereliction. A similar plan was adopted in spelling, 
with splendid results. They had no longer to be taught. Their 
interests prompted them to teach themselves. Whenever the 
individual instead of the class was made the basis for promotion, 
I found largely similar results. 

To say that we ought to follow the lead of the child's interest 
is good pedagogy provided his interests are healthy and have 
come about through normal development. But there are many 
unhealthy and perverted interests. It is manifestly wrong to 
obey these. Moreover apparent interests are many times mere 
passing whims. It is as important that parents and teachers 
create interests as it is that they follow those exhibited by the 
child. As with instincts, some are good, others bad. The good 
ones are to be nourished, the bad stifled or diverted. It is not 
more safe to follow the child's interests than his appetites for 
food. Left entirely to himself in the matter, he sometimes se- 
lects pickles and jam, or superabundance of starches, rather 
than those things that are nutritious. 



700 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

It is not a question of having the child interested, but of more 
importance, having him interested in worthy things. It is a 
mistake to think that at all events children must be happy. 
Happiness is desirable, but not the only desideratum. Better be 
less happy and more serious, if occupied with right thoughts and 
actions, than happy in evil or idle things. Better be serious in 
work than happy in sin and wickedness. Momentary pleasure 
in childhood does not insure life-long happiness. The child 
should early learn that his own selfish gratification must often 
be subordinated to the welfare of others — the family and society. 
As with instincts, we cannot trust all to the child. Rightly con- 
stituted authority must set up ideals and standards toward 
which individuals and society must be guided, and sometimes 
even coerced. Apropos of this point a paragraph from Herbart 
may be quoted: "Interest means self-activity. The demand 
for a many-sided interest is, therefore, a demand for many-sided 
activity. But not all self-activity, only the right degree of the 
right kind, is desirable; else lively children might very well be 
left to themselves. There would be no need of educating or 
even governing them. It is the purpose of education to give 
the right direction to their thought and impulses, to incline these 
to the morally good and true." ' To become deeply interested 
in things that are worthy and ennobling is of more value than 
learning. The right attitude toward life is of the greatest 
importance. Too many are secretly or openly interested in 
ignoble things. 

Adolescence and Life Interests. — It is during adolescence, that 
period of enlarged vision and superabundant life, that inter- 
ests and enthusiasms are at a white heat. Out of the manifold 
interests then dominant some will become crystallized into the 
permanent life-interests. The stamp which is impressed upon 
the youthful life will become fixed forever. Just as conversions 
rarely occur in maturity, just as a criminal usually enters upon 
his career in the morning of life, so lives of usefulness, happiness, 
and virtue are launched while the heart is yet young. 

1 Outline of Educational Doctrine, translated by Lange, p. 60. 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 701 

President Eliot wrote: 1 "Any one who has read many biog- 
raphies will have perceived that the guiding enthusiasm of a 
life often springs early into view and that this is almost always 
the case in the most effective human beings. The youth has a 
vision of the life he would like to live, of the service he would 
choose to render, of the power he would prefer to exercise, and 
for fifty years he pursues this vision. In almost all great men 
the leading idea of the life is caught early, or a principle or 
thesis comes to mind during youth which the entire adult life is 
too short to develop thoroughly. Most great teachers have 
started with a theory, or a single idea or group of ideas, to the 
working out of which in practice they have given their lives. 
Many great preachers have really had but one theme. Many 
architects have devoted themselves, with inexhaustible enthu- 
siasm, to a single style of architecture. Some of the greatest 
soldiers have fought all their battles by one sort of strategy 
adopted in their youth. Many great rulers have harped all 
their lives on only one string of national or racial sentiment. 
Among men of science the instances are innumerable in which 
a whole life has been devoted to the patient pursuit of a single 
vision seen in youth." 

It is seldom that an entirely new occupation is entered upon 
with success after middle life. After that a splendid super- 
structure may be erected, but the foundations must have been 
laid in early life. Although young shoulders should not become 
bowed down by an overweening sense of responsibility, yet it is 
sinful not to impress the young with the importance of the morn- 
ing of life. The old adage that it is never too late to mend should 
be replaced by the one that it is ever too late to become what one 
might have been, if an opportunity has been allowed to slip. 
Students should early recognize the importance of making the 
most of the morning of life. Biologists have come to recognize 
the economic value of the period of infancy. This is a time 
of plasticity, a time when the individual can be moulded and 
modified; in other words educated. The longer the period of 

1 Journal of Pedagogy, 17 : 112. 



702 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

infancy the higher the degree of educability. The newly-hatched 
chick has a short period of infancy. On emerging from the 
egg it can perform almost all the activities which it will ever 
be able to perform. It has very little to learn, very little possi- 
bility of learning, and very little time in which to learn. The 
young dog has more to learn, a longer season in which to 
learn it, and larger possibilities of acquiring new activities. The 
human being has the longest period of infancy. By infancy I 
do not mean alone the period when the child is in the cradle. 
Biologically it includes all of life from birth to maturity. After 
this period, the possibilities of education grow less and less. 

Brain workers inaugurate their best work between the ages 
of twenty-five and forty-five; before that they are preparing for 
work, after that their work no matter how extensive is largely 
routine. Lawyers and physicians do much of their practice 
after forty, but the learning was accomplished before forty or 
forty-five. Successful merchants lay the foundations for wealth 
and success in youth and middle life. The great men that we 
know are all old men; but the foundations for their greatness 
were laid when they were young. Philosophers have founded 
and announced their systems in youth and early manhood; 
divines and religious teachers have originated their creeds and 
have been most effective as preachers in early manhood. States- 
men have projected their greatest acts of legislation, diplomacy, 
and reform in early life. In the morning of life scientists have 
wrought out the data and practically formulated their theories; 
generals and admirals have gained their greatest victories; lawyers 
have paved the way for leadership at the bar; physicians have 
laid the groundwork for their greatest discoveries; poets and 
artists and musicians have planned and in many instances exe- 
cuted their greatest masterpieces; engineers have planned the 
greatest monuments. The war in Africa was begun with old 
men for counsel and the young men in the field. But before 
decisive results came, young men were also directing affairs. 

A few instances may be cited to show that the world's leaders 
in all lines of progress have either become illustrious early in 



INTEREST AND EDUCATION 703 

life or have done the thinking which they have reserved for later 
expression. Dickens began early to write. The Pickwick 
Papers was produced at 25. The works which have immortal- 
ized his name were all produced before 40. Ruskin had com- 
pleted the first part of his greatest work, Modern Painters, at 
28. Shakespeare had produced some of his immortal plays 
before 36. Bunyan had depicted man's cycles of hopes, sor- 
rows, and despair before 35. Byron and Burns died at 36, 
Keats and Marlowe at 29, and Shelley at 30. Coleridge wrote 
his Ancient Mariner at 25, Goethe and Victor Hugo had pro- 
duced works of lasting value at 20. If Carlyle had died at 45 
the loss to literature would not have been great. , Lord Bacon 
had begun to philosophize at 16, and at 36 had published twelve 
of his essays. At 29 Descartes began to outline his system, and 
at 41 to publish it. Schelling was a renowned university pro- 
fessor of philosophy at 28. Emerson expressed the essence of his 
philosophy between 25 and 40. His essays first appeared at 

38, though they had been uppermost in his thoughts from early 
manhood. 

Edison was a young inventor. In fact, all inventors are 
young. Eli Whitney was noted at 27, Colt at 21, Fulton at 28, 
Dreyse at 42, Graefe at 25. Alexander the Great had con- 
quered Greece at 21, Persia at 25, and had completed his 
history at ^t,. Julius Caesar began to take part in the great 
drama for which he is remembered at 17, Hannibal at 29, 
William the Conquerer before 20, Cromwell before 30, Marl- 
borough at 32, Napoleon at 25, Wellington at 25, Nelson at 

39. Among artists and sculptors about three out of four have 
shown decided promise before 15. Michelangelo produced 
great works by 19. Raphael and Van Dyck painted famous 
pictures before reaching their majority. Rembrandt was famous 
at 24. Among musicians we may cite Mozart, Beethoven, 
Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann as real producers before 
20; in fact, each produced something original by 13. 

If we turn to muscle workers we find that early in life they 
reach their maximum and that their capacity is either station- 



7 o 4 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

ary or has begun to decline at 35 or 40. This is true of all 
athletes, oarsmen, pedestrians, lumbermen, guides, farmers, and 
soldiers. Beard says: "To get the best soldiers we must rob 
neither the cradle nor the grave, but select from those decades 
when the best brain work of the world is done." It has been 
statistically determined by Sir Crichton Browne in England 
that among the handicrafts of weaving, button making, and 
pottery making there is an increase in proficiency from 17 to 30, 
when the maximum is attained. From 30 to 45 there is an 
equilibrium, and after that a gradual decline. 

We are therefore strongly admonished that the most possible 
should be made of early life. Youth is the time of great oppor- 
tunities which come but once. We build for eternity. The 
youth cannot sow wild oats and expect to reap a character of 
noble manhood and womanhood. " Whatsoever a man soweth 
that shall he also reap." Luther once said: "If a man is not 
handsome at 20, strong at 30, learned at 40, and rich at 50, he 
will never be handsome, strong, learned, or rich in the world.''' 



XXVII 
VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 

Meaning of Will. — Will is ordinarily spoken of as if it were an 
entity, a something which compels us to follow some line of 
action rather than another. It is said, for example: "He kept 
up by sheer force of his strong will," "His iron will carried him 
onward," or "His will weakened," "He failed because he lacked 
will," etc. One person is said to have a firm will and another 
one that is vacillating. Will is thus regarded as a sort of 
psychological ghost which continually pursues us compelling or 
prohibiting whatever we undertake to do. It is regarded as a 
transcendental something outside of the self and apparently 
not subject to the usual laws governing mental life. Every 
one is supposed to have a will of inherent and unmodifiable 
quantity and quality. Each is supposed to be ushered into 
the world with a particular species of will to be his life-long 
dictator. 

A little reflection ought to convince us, however, that the will 
is not a separate and transcendental entity, but that all volition 
conforms to universal laws of psychic action. From previous 
discussions we have seen that one of the most fundamental 
conceptions of mental life is that of its unity. The mind is not a 
sum of separate faculties each of which functions independently 
of the others. There is no intellectual activity without some 
f eeling-tone ; there is no feeling without some accompanying 
knowledge. Likewise there is no such thing as pure volition 
without some feeling and some intellection. Why do we will? 
Because we desire something. Why do we desire it ? Because we 
have knowledge of it, and it seems to possess some worth for us; 
because we have had experiences which have left tendencies 

7°5 



706 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

toward the particular action. We give it our attention which is 
the same thing as choosing or selecting it. I have emphasized 
this view-point because it is so important in considering will 
training to bear in mind the interrelation between these psychic 
activities. The will can no more be isolated for the purpose of 
training than .we can isolate mind or body from each other. 
The will is the dynamic or active phase of any mental state. It 
always exists in concomitance with states of knowing and states 
of feeling. Cognitive experiences come to possess certain values 
for a given mind and it is said to have feelings or emotions. 
Because of the values attached (feelings, emotions), it strives to 
accomplish certain ends — actions, inhibitions, etc. (wills). 

In this connection Royce writes that our minds are full of 
"passing impulses, of tendencies to action, of passions, and of 
concerns for what we take to be our welfare. All these impulses 
and concerns get woven, by the laws of habit, into systems of 
ruling motives which express themselves without in our regular 
fashions of conduct. The whole of our inner life, viewed in this 
aspect, appears as the purposive side oj our consciousness, or as 
the will in the wider sense." 1 

Genesis of a Voluntary Action. — In order to understand fully 
developed volitional acts let us examine the genesis of a volun- 
tary act, for example, throwing at a mark. We throw at the 
mark and do not succeed. But in so doing we have gained cer- 
tain experiences — muscular, auditory, etc. Each of these ex- 
periences leaves a memory. It may be a visual memory of the 
appearance of the mark and of the distance, or it may be the 
kinesthetic memory of the position of the arm as it was raised, 
as the missile was hurled, of the position of the hand and the 
fingers as the missile was released, etc. All of these memories 
are taken account of in gauging the next trial. We know, for 
example, how wide of the mark we came and how much muscular 
tension was exerted, at what height the object was released. 
These memories we compare with our ideas of the amount of 
force that ought to be exerted, the modified positions to be taken 

1 Royce, Outlines of Psychology, p. 367. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 707 

by the arm and hand, and other conditions which we think ought 
to bring about the desired end. We try again and possibly err 
in the opposite direction. The memories of this experience are 
now compared with the former ones and also with the imagined 
necessary ones and we repeat the trial, trying to correct all the 
former errors. If perchance we have accidentally hit the mark 
the first time the case is fundamentally the same. In either case 
we try to remember the sensations and perceptions gained under 
these conditions and then endeavor to repeat them. It takes 
many trials before we can perform the action purposively, be- 
cause our memories of the movement are so fleeting and im- 
perfect, and our ideas of what is necessary are so indefinite. At 
first we can not know just what to do because we can have no 
accurate idea of the end until we have actually accomplished 
the end. 

From this analysis we see that in order to perform an act volun- 
tarily we must have (a) an idea (not necessarily a conscious idea) 
of the end to be accomplished, and (b) a stock of memories of 
former experiences from which a suitable selection can be used 
in guiding action toward the ideal end. This idea of the end to 
be accomplished includes not only an idea of what is to be done, 
but also the idea of how to do it. On first consideration this 
may seem a startling statement. The inquiry will at once be 
raised as to how we can ever perform an act voluntarily if we 
must first know definitely how to accomplish the act and if that 
knowledge can only be gained by actual performance of it. 
Paradoxical as it may seem, however, no act can be performed 
voluntarily until it has been first performed non-voluntarily. 
This does not mean that as a whole it must have been performed 
non-voluntarily, but that the elements which enter into it must 
have been performed non-voluntarily. In the case of reaching for 
a book, for example, we do it at once without difficulty although 
we have never reached for the identical book or in that particular 
place. But we have moved the arm and the hand /n countless 
directions previously and each of these Teachings has been re- 
corded in memory. Now when we wish to reach for a particular 



708 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

book in a particular place we select from all the past experiences 
certain elements and combine those elements into a new whole 
and perform the new action with ease. 

James writes that "no creature not endowed with divinatory 
power can perform an act voluntarily the first time." But as 
we are not endowed with prophetic power we must wait for the 
movements to be performed involuntarily before we can frame 
ideas of what they are. "We learn all our possibilities by the 
way of experience. When a particular movement, having once 
occurred in a random, reflex, or involuntary way, has left an 
image of itself in the memory, then the movement can be desired 
again, proposed as an end, and deliberately willed. But it is 
impossible to see how it could be willed before. A supply of 
ideas of the various movements that are possible left in the memory 
by experiences of their involuntary performance is thus the first 
prerequisite of the voluntary life." 1 

Professor Royce voices the same idea in the following sen- 
tences: "Strange as the statement may seem, we can never 
consciously and directly will any really novel course of action. 
We can directly will an act only when we have before done that 
act, and have so experienced the nature of it. The will is as de- 
pendent as the intellect upon our past experience. One can 
indeed will an act which is sure to involve, in a given environ- 
ment, absolutely novel consequences; but the act itself, so far 
as one wills it, is a familiar act. Thus a suicide can will an act 
which results in his own death, and so far he seems to be willing 
something which wholly transcends his past experience. But, as 
a fact, the act itself which he makes the direct object of his will 
(e. g., pointing a pistol and pulling a trigger, or swallowing a 
dose) is itself an act with which he is long since decidedly 
familiar." 2 

Fundamental Movements Involved in Volition. — All voluntary 
actions utilize the conserved effects of previous experiences — the 
organic motor memories, traces, or impulses. Every movement 

1 James, Principles of Psychology, II, pp. 487, 488. 

2 Royce, op. cit., p. 369. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 709 

of the body, voluntary or non-voluntary, bequeaths some of 
these effects which are drawn upon in subsequent volitional 
activities. Consequently it becomes important to indicate 
specifically at least the main classes of fundamental muscular 
activities out of which the more complex stages of volition 
develop. 

(1) From our discussion of self -activity we have seen that 
every organism tends to produce some movement merely through 
the processes of growth, those which are simply the result of an 
overflow of nervous energy. These movements are random 
and indefinite. These spontaneous movements are a direct 
function of nutrition. Warner says that " movement is the most 
obvious outcome of nutrition in a subject. A young infant is 
full of movement while awake if nutrition is good; its arms and 
fingers are moved apparently spontaneously." x (2) Through 
the various reflexes set up by external stimuli the babe performs 
many random movements. (3) Through instinctive movement 
produced by hunger much aimless moving about is carried on. 
(4) Through other instincts many active processes are set up, 
such as sucking movements, biting, grasping, winking, crying, 
smiling, babbling, creeping, etc. (5) Through being carried 
about, being fed, washed, dressed, etc., thousands of positions 
are assumed; e. g., gravity causes the hands and feet to fall if 
unsupported. Thus many movements, accidental so far as the 
child is concerned, are experienced. (6) In attempting to per- 
form some definite voluntary act we non- voluntarily, i. e., unin- 
tentionally execute a multitude of other movements. 

All of the foregoing and many others tend to form impulses 
toward reaction on receiving new stimuli. Thus vast numbers 
of will-less movements are executed and become a basis for the 
complex purposive intentional and controlled activities. The 
learning of any new movement, especially by the lower animals 
and by children, becomes a process of trial and error, a process 
of selection of appropriate movements from among the hetero- 
geneous mass of remembered movements. Some writers go so 

1 Warner, Physical Expression, p. 59. See the chart showing tracings, p. 245 



710 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

far as to say that normally all motor education and adjustment 
is a process of selection of suitable movements from among an 
excess of movements inherited by the child. There is thus a 
survival of the fittest in motor ideas. 

Initial Stages of Volition. — The newborn babe has no will of 
a very high type. No movements or actions are consciously and 
deliberately attempted. However, through heredity and indi- 
vidual muscular development a large degree of muscular control 
has been attained. The child has power to move its limbs in a 
strong and vigorous way. This power is hereditary and not 
dependent upon the reflexes incident to growth and environment. 
Those due to early experience soon reinforce the instinctive 
ones. Many of the truly instinctive movements are under firm 
control. For example, though instinct prompts the sucking 
movements they are by no means automatic or reflex but well 
under control. If the child feels a bit of bare skin, as on the 
arm, its head begins to turn and its mouth to try to grasp. 
Instinct prompts to the action, but the control is volitional- 
elementary to be sure when compared with the will that builds 
railroads and 'moves armies, but volitional nevertheless. One 
child at birth kicked so and threw his arms about that a blanket 
was with difficulty kept about him. Newborn children can 
writhe about and twist their bodies, turn the head, and even 
raise the head considerably when laid on their faces. Again 
they have such power in their arms and hands that a pencil or a 
finger is at once grasped. On good authority we also know that 
many children can support their entire weight for some time 
if suspended from a stick which they have been given to grasp. 
This instinctive power soon fades away. While crying is at 
first entirely instinctive and reflex, the child with great precocity 
soon learns to control the voice for his own advantage. Facial 
expression, bodily movement, grasping, examining, locomotion, 
etc., all appear rapidly in the child's development. Even some 
control of attention appears remarkably early. 

The Development of Voluntary Motor Ability. — The develop- 
ment of the will in the child is interesting to trace. Instead of 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 711 

being a fixed quantity manifested on all occasions it grows grad- 
ually with the growth of the body, with the growth of the intel- 
lect and of the feelings. Hancock made a comparative study of 
the motor ability of children of various ages and of adults. He 
tested their powers of steadiness in standing, and in executing 
various movements such as threading needles and tying the two 
ends of a rope together. He tells us that in the tests for co- 
ordination of movements children experienced great difficulty 
in executing the finer ones. Fifty-six boys, ranging from five 
to seven years, were given extra large needles to thread. Fifty 
succeeded, but only after two or three efforts. It often made 
them nervous to try. Twenty-two children out of sixty-three 
were unable to tie the ends of a two-foot string together. All who 
succeeded did it in the most simple way possible, viz., by "placing 
the ends side by side. Children find it difficult to beat time 
because of lack of power of co-ordination. 

Mr. G. E. Johnson made many tests of motor ability among 
idiots, and he found them very deficient in voluntary control, 
especially of the accessory muscles. Their movements are 
usually of a low order. He says: " No one who has ever seen a 
company of low-grade feeble-minded persons will ever forget 
the strange anomalies in their movements. The rolling head, 
the convulsive shiver, the contorted features, the strange postures 
of hand and body, the puzzling gesticulations, the rocking gait, 
leave an indelible impression even among all the other curious 
and at first deeply repulsive features presented by this unfortu- 
nate class." * "In some of the lowest cases there is found the 
most incessant motion. Many of these movements involve only 
the fundamental muscles of the trunk." He says that many sit 
and constantly rock back and forth. They often sit with their 
legs folded up under them. 

In order to test the relation between voluntary motor control 
of the fundamental and the accessory muscles Mr. Johnson had 
them rotate the arm as rapidly as possible and also open and 
shut the fingers as rapidly as possible. He also tested normal 

1 " Feeble-Minded Children," Ped. Sem., 3 : 274. 



712 



PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 



children in the same way for purposes of comparison. Some 
of his results are appended. The figures indicate the number 
of rotations of the shoulder which were made in ten seconds and 
the number of times the fingers were opened in the same length 
of time: * 





AV. AGE 


SHOULDER 


FINGERS 


RATIO 


8 feeble-min 


ded boys 


13.6 yrs. 


2I.6o 


17.62 


100 : 81 


8 " 


girls 


16.1 " 


21.25 


20.25 


100 : 93.2 


13 normal 


boys 


13.6 " 


26.85 


25-IS 


100 : 93.6 


12 " 


men 




25.4O 


32.70 


100 : 128 


5 " 


women 




22.60 


S 2 


100 : 141 



Johnson remarks that among the idiots there was almost no 
power of opening and shutting the fingers laterally. In attempt- 
ing these movements oftentimes some more fundamental move- 
ments were first made. We know also that the associations of 
the feeble-minded are of a very low order and made very slowly. 
Associations which are made easily and quickly by normal 
children may be wholly beyond the power of the defective. 
Sense-perception and a low order of memory may be fairly 
developed, but higher associations are almost wholly lacking. 
Mr. Johnson tells us that frequently "The child who hears- well, 
who sees well, who has good general sensibility and fair memory, 
as many of these children have, may show as his main defect ina- 
bility to form associations." 2 Very simple games are required 
for "The co-ordination of muscular movements, the quickness of 
thought, the idealization necessary in many games of children, 
are far beyond a feeble-minded child." 

"In the willed movements, the difference between the control 
of the fundamental and of the accessory muscles was much more 
marked in the feeble-minded than in normal children. This 
was the more noticeable the greater the degree of idiocy. Some 
who could execute gross movements with regularity and control 

1 Op. cit., p. 281. 2 Op. cit., p. 284. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 713 

were wholly deficient in the execution of finer movements. Even 
those who walked strongly were utterly devoid of the grace which 
results from a well-developed sense of muscular co-ordination 
and control. Nothing is more striking than the clumsy awk- 
wardness of idiots. Sometimes where the control of the funda- 
mental had been nearly perfected, there seemed a positive gap, 
as if the accessory had not developed." 1 

What Is a Strong Will ? — According to the popular notion that 
person has a strong will who is full of strong, uncontrolled im- 
pulses, who exhibits great vigor in doing things in the face of 
opposition, or who is able to resist great temptations. Our 
examination of the development of voluntary movements and 
the relation between volition and habit will not bear out the 
popular notion. The subject is so difficult, however, that a 
little closer examination is necessary for full understanding. A 
voluntary action is one that is under control. It is one which has 
been brought under control by the individual or it may be in 
part due to hereditary tendencies. Yet we say of the man who 
experienced a great temptation to go into the saloon, who had a 
tremendous struggle with himself against going, but who finally 
mastered his inclination, that he had a strong will. Another 
man goes by the saloon door with no temptation, no inclination 
to go in, and without any struggle. We give him no credit for 
strength of will. We demand that there be struggle in order 
to ascribe anything to strength of will. The man who goes 
about with no temptation to pick people's pockets, no craving 
for murder, no longing to set a match under his neighbor's 
house, no struggle against evil is not thought of as strong-willed. 
But let a man struggle with debasing impulses, coming out 
victorious, and we cite him as a man of will. Now, this is incor- 
rect. We may laud the man who has struggled and won as a 
means of encouragement to future righteousness, but it is wrong 
to regard him as an exemplar of sturdy will. A strong will in 
the psychological sense means a trained will; it means a high de- 
gree of control : while the very fact that a struggle with temptation 

1 Op. cit., p. 281. 



714 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

has ensued indicates difficulty of control or lack of will. The 
temptation and the struggle are indications of disease of will 
or lack of perfect volitional development. The power to go by 
the saloon, to keep one's hands out of people's pockets, to in- 
hibit thoughts of revenge and injury to others is a token of a 
high degree of will training. These virtues do not come merely 
through individual training, but they indicate hereditary tenden- 
cies accumulated through generations of training in temperate 
living, abstinence from excesses, self-renunciation, altruism, etc. 
Hence, the person with desirable hereditary endowment and 
properly developed individual habits does not feel temptation 
toward intemperate sense gratification, taking what does not 
belong to him, or destruction of another's property. 

Most people would grant that I am voluntarily writing these 
words, but how many there are who would not admit that such 
action exhibits considerable will power. Should I walk across the 
floor or open my mouth and speak several sentences correctly 
few would deny that it was voluntarily done, but how many 
would fail to acknowledge that it was an exhibition of strength of 
will. Because of the looseness of popular psychological analysis 
and the inaccuracies in the use of language the word willingly 
has not been generally thought to express an attitude of will. 
But in reality one who is willing in doing a thing wills to do it. 
Should I be stricken with palsy and then tremblingly write a 
page, or stammer out a few incoherent sentences, or walk with 
tottering steps across the floor, but exhibit struggle and per- 
sistence, the same ones who conceded nothing to my will before, 
would now marvel at my strength of will. As I regard the case, 
the palsied nerves, the exhausting struggle, and the indifferent 
execution are all signs of diseased and therefore weak will. 
The perfect control without struggle, and accurate execution 
are evidences of strength of will in that direction. Whatever 
is voluntarily done and with ease and accuracy is a manifesta- 
tion of a strong will. 

Individual Variations in Volition. — It will readily be noted 
that there are a great many varieties of volitional response 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 715 

manifested by different individuals. There is the person who 
is cool, calm, calculating, and deliberate in everything he does; 
as his opposite there is the one who always acts on momentary 
impulses, never foreseeing completely the results of his action. 
Among the former type, represented admirably by Gladstone, 
are the great constructive statesmen; in the latter class we find 
many great reformers and soldiers — such men as Luther and 
Napoleon (the world-shaking type, as James denominates them). 
Then there is the vacillating type, thoroughly deliberating and 
weighing, but never arriving at a decision. Such a one is al- 
ways "going to do" something, but never getting started. Ex- 
tremes of this type, of course, are pathological. 

It should also be noted that the same person may have strength 
of will in one direction and not in another. A highwayman 
may give an exhibition of the most perfect control in a railway 
holdup, but be the most weak-kneed coward imaginable in 
facing a drawing-room full of company, in making a speech, 
or standing firm in a moral issue. Stammering is a disease of 
the will, and who has not seen otherwise strong men who have 
been stammerers ? The stammering was indicative of weakness 
in a single direction. One may have perfect physical control, 
but be lacking in intellectual control, i. e., he may be subject 
to mind wandering, lacking in attention, in control of memory, 
imagination, thinking, etc. One may have good control of pre- 
dominantly intellectual processes but be without proper emo- 
tional balance. He may be a slave to some great absorbing 
passions or may be subject to explosions of temper. Similarly 
there are those who have perfect control of intellectual and 
emotional processes but who are sadly lacking in moral control. 
It is important in education to recognize these variations that 
may appear in the same individual. If the moral will is weak, 
for example, it is frequently impossible to develop it through 
purely intellectual activities. Logical training will not neces- 
sarily produce honesty. 

Will Means Accumulated Tendencies. — I have tried through- 
out this work to indicate that every experience leaves its inef- 



7 i6 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

faceable trace upon the nervous system and consequently upon 
the mind. As these effects of experience accumulate in certain 
directions, impulses and tendencies toward action are produced 
in those directions. In this way the mind and body develop 
particular attitudes and processes. When we analyze the mean- 
ing of character we find that it implies nothing more nor less 
than the accumulated tendencies toward action in particular 
directions. A man who has habitually acted in a righteous 
direction has built up tendencies toward righteousness. On 
the other hand, one who has sown a generous supply of wild 
oats in youth is sure to reap in old age an abundant harvest of 
viciousness. It could not be otherwise. We are enjoined in 
the Scriptures that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap." It may seem somewhat materialistic to call these 
results of experience character, but from a scientific analysis of 
the effect of experience upon the nervous system and upon the 
mind we cannot help but conclude that character is a result of 
all the experiences which have come to us. It is somewhat 
annoying to the one who has led an idle, dissolute life to con- 
template that the record of all his life is constantly in evidence 
in impelling him in the direction in which he has started, but the 
result is unavoidable. On the other hand, one may derive a 
large measure of comfort and satisfaction from a knowledge of 
the scientific fact that life-long experience in the direction of 
right will produce a fund of capital upon which we are continu- 
ally to draw. A man who has thus lived properly all his life 
will be able to stand firm easily when the storm of temptation 
rages round him. 

Relation to "Free-Will." — Viewed from this stand-point, we 
may be accused of refuting the doctrine of free-will, which we 
are really espousing. This doctrine, however, as often stated, 
is a mere quibble of words, and many of those who think they 
believe in the doctrine of free-will do not have an adequate 
comprehension of its consequences. Ordinarily the uncritical 
individual regards himself as a free being who may do whatever 
comes into his mind. He says, " I am free to do what I please." 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 717 

Should we analyze the case in the light of the foregoing concep- 
tion of will and its development we should probably see that 
no individual is absolutely free to do what he may happen to 
think. In a way he may perhaps do what he pleases, but he is 
not free to be pleased to do whatever he may think or whatever 
may be suggested to him. He who has lived a life of righteous- 
ness is not free to be pleased with doing vicious things. More- 
over, to a large extent, such a man is never free to do those 
things which are evil. During his whole life he has been forming 
habits in a different direction and these developed tendencies 
bind him almost surely to perform actions which are in harmony 
with them. We are continually chained to a certain extent to 
a routine life because of the force of habits which have become 
ingrained in us. Not only are our physical habits binding, but 
all our mental habits are equally enslaving. It is exceedingly 
difficult, as every one knows, for us to initiate entirely new and 
unfamiliar lines of activity. We are not free to think as we 
please, but we are bound to think along the lines of our previous 
thinking. In the words of Dr. G. Stanley Hall: "We will 
with all that we have willed." Furthermore, every time that we 
think, we will. 

I have frequently said to students: "You may think you are 
free to do anything that you know of or understand and which 
is not beyond your ordinary powers of execution, but an illus- 
tration will easily convince you that such is not the case. For 
example, when you go to church on Sunday you would not be 
able in the middle of the sermon to stand up and whistle or 
swear or give the university yell. Now, physically, it is per- 
fectly possible for you to do those things, and under other con- 
ditions you would be able to execute them; but under the condi- 
tions imposed you would be absolutely bound down to another 
course. All your ideas and habits and mental traditions are 
against any such extraordinary conduct, and hence while in 
church you must act according to your habitual ways of think- 
ing and according to the traditions of the house of worship 
which fill and take possession of your subconsciousness. No 



718 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

matter how great a sum one would promise to you if you would 
do those extraordinary things you would be utterly unable to 
do them. In other words, you are free only in the direction 
in which your past life allows you to act. You are absolutely 
prohibited from doing those and thousands of other things." 
Again, as an illustration of the same point, I say to them: "I 
had an appointment to speak before you to-day at ten o'clock. 
The weather was cold and stormy and everything exceedingly 
disagreeable and uninviting outside. It would have been a 
great pleasure for me to remain by my own fireside and bask in 
the warmth of the furnace heat, but throughout my whole life 
I have been accustomed to meeting all my appointments and on 
this occasion I should be utterly unable to remain contentedly 
by my fireside and break my engagement." In a sense I was 
not free to act according to my momentary inclination. I was 
impelled to act in the direction which the habits of my whole life 
have determined for me. 

During my whole career I have tried to lead an upright life 
and I contend that it would be utterly impossible for me to raise 
my hand against my neighbor in the act of murder. I am 
pleased to think that my whole previous career would act as a 
source of inhibition of any such procedure. But the criminal 
who has long schooled himself in vice would not feel this re- 
straining influence. Gradually he has developed impulses- and 
tendencies which would lead him in the direction of crime, and 
now upon the slightest provocation those impulses develop into 
corresponding actions. Hence we see from the pedagogical 
point of view how important it is to fortify the child against 
that which is undesirable in conduct by developing in him 
worthy impulses and tendencies through experience in right 
conduct. Right conduct in childhood there must be if we expect 
right conduct in adult years, and the only freedom which the 
man can ever have to do those things which are righteous and 
just is that freedom which is developed through life-long habits 
of righteous conduct. Otherwise all one's previous life in the 
opposite direction is ever present tending to drag one down. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 719 

In support of this point of view I append some words from 
Professor Fullerton who has made one of the clearest and most 
rational expositions of the doctrine of free will ever set forth. 
He writes as follows: 1 

"For forty years I have lived quietly and in obedience to 
law. I am regarded as a decent citizen, and one who can be 
counted upon not to rob his neighbor, or wave the red flag of 
the anarchist. I have grown gradually to be a character of 
such and such a kind; I am fairly familiar with my impulses 
and aspirations; I hope to carry out plans extending over a 
good many years in the future. Is it this / with whom I have 
lived in the past, and whom I think I know, that will elect for 
me whether I shall carry out plans or break them, be consistent 
or inconsistent, love or hate, be virtuous or betake myself to 
crime? Alas! I am 'free,' and this I with whom I am familiar 
cannot condition the future. But I will make the most serious 
of resolves, bind myself with the holiest of promises! To what 
end? How can any resolve be a cause of causeless actions, or 
any promise clip the erratic wing of ' free-will ' ? In so far as 
I am 'free' the future is a wall of darkness. One cannot even 
say with the Moslem : ' What shall be, will be ' ; for there is no 
shall about it. It is wholly impossible for me to guess what I 
will 'freely' do, and it is impossible for me to make any pro- 
vision against the consequences of ' free ' acts of the most deplor- 
able sort. A knowledge of my own character in the past brings 
with it neither hope nor consolation. My 'freedom' is just as 
'free' as that of the man who was hanged last week. It is 
not conditioned by my character. If he could 'freely' commit 
murder, so can I. But I never dreamt of killing a man, and 
would not do it for the world! No; that is true; the / that I 
know rebels against the thought. Yet to admit that this / can 
prevent it is to become a determinist. If I am 'free' I cannot 
seek this city of refuge. Is 'freedom' a thing that can be in- 
herited as a bodily or mental constitution ? Can it be repressed 
by a course of education, or laid in chains by life-long habit? 

1 " Freedom and ' Free-Will,' " Popular Science Monthly, 58 : 189, 191. 



7 2o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

In so far as any action is 'free,' what I have been, what I am, 
what I have always done or striven to do, what I most earnestly 
wish or resolve to do at the present moment — these things can 
have no more to do with its future realization than if they had 
no existence. If, then, I really am 'free,' I must face the pos- 
sibility that I may at any moment do anything that any man 
can 'freely' do. The possibility is a hideous one; and surely 
even the most ardent 'free-willist' will, when he contemplates 
it frankly, excuse me for hoping that, if I am 'free,' I am at 
least not very 'free,' and that I may reasonably expect to find 
some degree of consistency in my life and actions. An excess 
of such 'freedom' is indistinguishable from the most abject 
slavery to lawless caprice. . . . 

"It is a melancholy world, this world of 'freedom.' In it 
no man can count upon himself and no man can persuade his 
neighbor. We are, it is true, powerless to lead one another 
into evil; but we are also powerless to influence one another 
for good. It is a lonely world, in which each man is cut off 
from the great whole and given a lawless little world all to him- 
self. And it is an uncertain world, a world in which a knowl- 
edge of the past casts no ray into the darkness of the future. 
To-morrow I am to face nearly a hundred students in logic. 
It is a new class, and I know little about its members save that 
they are students. I have assumed that they will act as, stu- 
dents usually act, and that I shall escape with my life. But 
if they are endowed with 'free-will,' what may I not expect? 
What does 'free-will' care for the terrors of the Dean's office, 
the long green table, and the Committee of Discipline? Is it 
interested in Logic? Or does it have a personal respect for 
me? The picture is a harrowing one, and I drop the curtain 
upon it." 

Professor Paulsen shows that freedom of will is not an original 
endowment of human nature, but an acquired characteristic. 
One cannot necessarily accomplish every individual thing which 
one may wish, but by persistent effort one can determine the 
whole course of his life in consonance with an ideal standard 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 721 

chosen. He says that freedom "has been acquired by the 
entire race in the course of history, and must be acquired anew 
by each individual. The new-born child does not bring with 
it a ready-made freedom; nay, it is driven like an animal by 
momentary cravings. But gradually the rational will, sup- 
ported by education, rises above the animal impulses. This 
occurs in a different degree in different individuals; some are 
wholly controlled by these impulses during their entire lives, 
others acquire such a remarkable control over nature in them- 
selves that they seem to regulate even the smallest details of 
their lives by rational deliberation, and never do anything or 
leave anything undone, except by choice. It is to be observed, 
in this connection, that though it is vulgar and base to give 
the impulses complete mastery over one's self (ctKoXaaca), yet 
the complete suppression of them fills us with fear and awe; 
no one, as has been said, is lovable without his weaknesses. 
Man seems to be intended as a mean between an animal and 
a purely rational being. 

"Hence, can man determine himself by his own will? Can 
he fashion his will by means of his will ? Yes and no. Yes, 
for he undoubtedly has the faculty of educating himself; he 
can fashion his outer and inner man, with conscious purpose, 
according to his ideal; he can discipline his natural impulses, 
nay, even suppress them so that they will no longer move him. 
To be sure, he cannot do this simply by wishing or resolving it; 
he can do it only by constant practice and by employing appro- 
priate means, in the same way that he acquires bodily skill. 
We cannot when awake immediately force ourselves to sleep, 
by an act of the will; but we can, by proper diet and work, 
exercise such an influence upon the body that sleep will come 
in time of its own accord. It is said that Demosthenes's pro- 
nunciation was naturally indistinct and defective; the will 
to be an orator was not able, per se, to coerce the organs of 
speech, but it was able to prescribe to nature long and arduous 
tasks and to make these serve the desired end. Inner nature 
is susceptible of being influenced in the same way. A man 



722 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

knows that he has a dangerous tendency to anger. He decides 
to overcome it. His prudence and his good resolutions alone 
cannot, of course, by their mere presence, repress the violent 
fit of temper the very first time it breaks out again. But they 
can take the proper precautions necessary to subdue it gradu- 
ally. They determine him to avoid temptation; every organ, 
however, that is not exercised decays. His mind is filled with 
examples of the injurious effects of anger as well as with exam- 
ples of self-control; he even makes use of trivial aids; we ac- 
custom ourselves to say a prayer or to recite a few verses when 
we are seized with anger. Hence, a man can unquestionably 
transform his nature by his will. He may by inhibiting certain 
impulses destroy them, and develop and strengthen weak im- 
pulses by habit. ' Habit,' says the proverb, ' is second nature.' " * 
Educational Significance. — This conception of the will, which 
is just beginning to be recognized, is of great importance peda- 
gogically. Under the old way of conceiving the will as an 
entity of predetermined character, it was certainly useless to 
try to cultivate it, though, paradoxically, the same writers 
who promulgated the older theories of will and freedom of the 
will discoursed upon the great possibilities of will development. 
According to the view that will always implies conscious choice 
and deliberation there could be no training in volitional activities 
until there had been developed a high degree of intellectual and 
affective life. There could be little, if any, manifestation of 
will in animals, and none in children until some months old. 
There could certainly be no use trying to train the will of a 
small babe, for children are many months old before they 
deliberately choose and execute. The same criticism applies 
here as upon all of that psychology in which every psychosis 
was viewed from the stand-point of adult consciousness. The 
more recent psychology considers everything genetically and 
finds a rich heritage in the hereditary accumulations and in the 
subconscious life of both babyhood and of normal adult life. 
There is a rich mine of experience gained before the dawning 
1 Paulsen, A System of Ethics, translated by Thilly, p. 469. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 723 

of consciousness which must be explored and which makes up 
a worthy portion of all our tendencies. We have learned 
through the study of memory and instinct that every impression 
leaves its ineffaceable trace. Thus every infantile kick and 
howl and tumble become significant for the larger development 
of voluntary life. We have seen that we will with all that we 
have willed. To will in absolutely novel directions is as im- 
possible as lifting one's self by the boot straps. The execution 
of every movement becomes significant. Hence it becomes im- 
portant to regulate this congeries of random movements produc- 
ing orderly paths of execution. Thus when we train the child to 
eat regularly, to sleep at definite times and quietly, when we 
promote digestion, when we care for its physical health and keep 
its motor apparatus in working order, we are helping him to 
lay the desirable foundations of his voluntary life. 

Directions of Control. — Among the manifold directions of 
controlled actions only a few may be discussed, and these 
merely in a suggestive, rather than an exhaustive, manner. 
First and fundamentally every child must acquire muscular 
control of a great variety of actions and in some cases of ex- 
ceeding complexity. What are creeping, walking, standing, 
running, feeding one's self, going through the process of dress- 
ing, etc., but cases of voluntary control? True they come to 
seem automatic, but they are directly subject to modification 
and control and therefore volitional. To stand well, possess 
an erect carriage, walk gracefully, manage one's hands and 
feet without awkwardness, etc., are no mean accomplishments. 
They often secure for one an entree to the best society and even 
add to one's monthly salary. To give assurance of possessing 
these qualities is a prime endorsement to a candidate for many 
positions. They must be learned, too, contrary to current 
opinion. They are a badge of good society, and indicate that 
the possessor of these habits has been under approved tutors, 
unconsciously observed it may be, but none the less important. 
To manage one's voice so as to utter words distinctly, without 
stammering or hesitation, to modulate the voice properly in 



724 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

talking and singing, to be able to marshal apt words readily, 
to have the power of speaking in different languages; all these 
are excellent cases of a high degree of control. Who will say 
that they are not voluntary? Still there is no great degree of 
control until they are largely habitual. These are all worthy 
directions of will training. Proficiency in any of the several 
directions indicates education of the highest importance and 
gained only through much practice. Not only are the foregoing 
examples of muscular co-ordination and control, but they also 
illustrate controlled, highly complex psychical activities. Such 
activities as are manifested in drawing, painting, sculpture, 
watch-making, the fine touch and execution in surgery, or 
playing the piano or violin, are all splendid illustrations of a 
high degree of co-ordination and control. 

It is highly important that children receive thorough muscular 
training. This training in voluntary motor ability should be 
begun in infancy. The child must be allowed to move about 
freely. We have by no means reached the acme of perfection 
in the matter of suitable clothing for babies. At the outset we 
put them in dresses long enough to suit a ball-room belle. 
Instead of being able to kick about vigorously they are ham- 
pered in their movements by the unhygienic clothing. When the 
child becomes old enough to creep he is often prevented by the 
mother who fears he will soil a pretty dress. He is thus de- 
prived of lung development, chest expansion, control of hands, 
arms, and feet, and, in fact, the entire body is deprived of nor- 
mal development. One child studied, who had been deprived of 
the pleasure and profit of creeping, was put into "jumper over- 
alls" and allowed to creep. He gained two inches in chest 
expansion in eleven dayst Besides the improvements in vital 
capacity and increased chest measurement the child who creeps 
gains wonderfully in motor control. In his peregrinations he 
reaches for things, closes his chubby fists upon them, pulls 
himself toward things, making numberless daily motor adjust- 
ments requiring the fine calculation of conditions and the co- 
ordination of muscular effort. Again when the child loses his 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 725 

provinciality and becomes a pedestrian, fashion steps in to for- 
bid his wearing clothes in which he may sample sand piles and 
mud pies, in which he may climb fences and trees, turn somer- 
saults or roll in the grass. When shall we learn that the child 
must have freedom in order to develop properly physically, 
mentally, and morally? 

The games and plays of childhood not only develop muscular 
control — the elemental type of will — but through them the child 
also learns to direct thoughts to definite ends and to control 
his feelings, both through subordination and in proper asser- 
tion. Plays and games have not been sufficiently utilized as 
educative means. Their value has been demonstrated in 
kindergartens and in schools for the feeble-minded, and we 
should take a hint for the education of normal children. I hope 
the time will come when every teacher in our public schools will 
be required to be on the playground during certain specific 
times as a director of the play activities of the children. 

Motor-Culture and Moral Culture. — Dr. G. Stanley Hall in 
his incomparable article on moral education and will training, 
points out the immense role motor training has occupied in 
will growth. He believes that city children of to-day are liable 
to deteriorate volitionally largely because they do not have 
opportunity for will-culture through motor-culture. By con- 
trast he pictures the opportunities for such culture afforded by 
conditions of life a generation or two ago. In those days "most 
school-boys had either farm-work, chores, errands, jobs self- 
imposed or required by less tender parents; they made things, 
either toys or tools, out of school. Most school-girls did house- 
work, more or less of which is, like farm-work, perhaps the 
most varied and salutary as well as most venerable of all schools 
for the youthful body and mind. They undertook extensive 
works of embroidery, bed-quilting, knitting, sewing, mending, 
if not cleaning, and even spinning and weaving their own or 
others' clothing, and cared for the younger children. The 
wealthier devised or imposed tasks for will-culture, as the 
German crown-prince has his children taught a trade as part 



726 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

of their education. Ten days at the hoe-handle, axe, or pitch- 
fork, said an eminent educator lately in substance, with no new 
impression from without, and one constant and only duty, is a 
schooling in perseverance and sustained effort, such as few boys 
now get in any shape." ' 

Children should be taught to work. A child that has not 
learned to work has not mastered the A B C's of will-training. 
Work differs from play in that it is not a means of relaxation. 
Work often demands that activity be kept up long after exhil- 
aration has ceased. An object must be accomplished no matter 
what the inclinations may dictate. 

Intellectual Control. — Although the foregoing activities in- 
volve controlled psychical processes, there are still higher men- 
tal activities which are not so closely related to muscular actions. 
What one thinks about when not engaged in set routine duties 
seems at first sight to be accidental and uncontrolled, but an 
examination will reveal that our thoughts lie along certain quite 
well-defined paths. We are constantly thinking about our line 
of work or pleasure, and, though temporary deviations are 
made because of chance suggestions, we continually revert to 
the habitual line of thought. It is precisely because the ideas 
are habitual that they are intruded before us. If we conscien- 
tiously set ourselves to reflecting upon a given topic the degree 
of habituation in that direction determines the degree of readi- 
ness with which we stick to the purpose. In other words, the 
more we know in a given line, the more we have thought about 
it, the greater the degree of thought-control we can manifest 
in that line. If I am able to secure willing attention from my 
class it is because the ideas which I am trying to get before them 
are so closely related to what they already know. If asked why 
they paid such close attention they would say because they 
were interested. This is only another way of saying that the 
road is a familiar one, that their apperception enables them to 
understand and follow without apparent effort what is dis- 
cussed. Attention, even the most consciously voluntary, de- 

1 Pedagogical Seminary, 2 : 73-74. 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 727 

pends upon points of relation between the thing attended to and 
the experience of the learner. No one can voluntarily attend 
for any length of time to a mere spot on the wall. It is meaning- 
less and without interest. As soon as the mind finds no well- 
worn tracks to follow interest dies out, attention wavers, and 
control of thoughts is lost. The highest degree of volition is 
evidenced by long-continued application to a single purpose. 
The development of a great industry in pursuance of chosen 
ideals, the unremitting toil necessitated in writing books, or 
in patiently conducting experimental researches, the persistence 
often manifested in acquiring a college education unaided and 
in the face of obstacles, each exemplifies a superlative exhibition 
of protracted volitional control. The momentary' control of 
anger under provocation, individual acts of bravery or self- 
denial, or the careful attention to a single lesson are not to be 
compared with the thoroughly established, consistent conduct, 
regulated in a thousand ways and all promoting a single end. 
The former actions represent merely temporary impulse, while 
the last named represents integrity and fixity of high moral 
character. 

Some people frequently notice that they do not seem to keep 
their attention easily upon a given train of thought. They are 
subject to mind-wandering. They should be assured that this 
is largely because they have never developed habits of reflecting 
long and continuously about anything. The habit of looking 
at all sides of a subject can be developed by persistent practice. 
Frequently the mind wanders because no fund of knowledge 
has been acquired along the line of pursuit. Furthermore, the 
most willing attention, i. e., the most voluntary attention, is a 
direct outgrowth of interest. Genuine interest can only be 
developed through previous knowledge. 

A characteristic of children is that they live in the present 
and for the present. Ask a child which he would prefer, a 
stick of candy to-day or ten sticks to-morrow, and he will inva- 
riably choose the one to-day. Likewise the savage is largely 
unmindful of the future. He provides for the present meal and 



728 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

then sleeps until hunger sends him on the chase to provide 
another. Civilization teaches men to deal in futures, to pro- 
vide for the morrow, the rainy day, to provide a protracted 
course of education for the child as a preparation for the future. 
To teach the child to build for the future, to practise virtues 
and inhibit vices in order to eventually acquire ideal habits 
and states, and to insure the highest prudential control, is true 
pedagogy. The world's great thinkers have all been men who 
have been able to give sustained, undivided, and continuous 
thought to whatever occupied their attention. 

Emotional Control. — To develop control of the feelings and 
emotions is an important direction of will-culture. When we 
consider that feelings and emotions are the great determining 
forces in active life and that no progress was ever made that did 
not have back of it a great interest, the importance of the ques- 
tion is impressed upon us. Our attitude toward life and its 
duties determines what our active relations will be. Are we 
happy, cheerful, full of sympathy and kindly fellow-feeling; 
or are we sorrowful, depressed, full of anger, jealousy, or resent- 
ment? The answer indicates the direction which our actions 
will take. Hence we see the importance in a child's education 
of teaching control of the emotions. In the early life of the 
infant, and to a considerable extent through childhood, the 
feelings are more dominant than the intellect. The feelings 
are much more paleopsychic than is the intellect. The majority 
of all free activities of the lower animals and of children are im- 
pelled by feeling. Hunger and its satisfaction, the use of the 
muscles in free play, satisfaction of curiosity, etc., are pre- 
eminently matters of feeling. (There are those who go so far 
as to say that the whole course of evolution is determined by 
pleasures and pains.) 

Practically all the early manifested instincts are emotional. 
Among these are fear, anger, jealousy, shyness, sociability, 
affection, and curiosity. The whole natural psychical provision 
for self-preservation is largely a matter of instinctive personal 
feeling. Rational intellectual processes scarcely enter into 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 729 

primitive modes of self-preservation. The newly-hatched par- 
tridge is terrorized by strange objects, it knows not why; the 
kitten spits at a dog simply because it possesses an antipathy 
against it, not because it has individually concluded that such 
a course is best. 

Dr. Hall, who has emphasized so strongly the preponderant 
place which the emotions occupy in primitive life and in child- 
life, writes that 1 "Happily for our craft, the child and youth 
appear at the truly psychological moment, freighted, as they 
are, body and soul, with reminiscences of what we were fast 
losing. They are abandoned to joy, grief, passion, fear, and 
rage. They are bashful, show off, weep, laugh, desire, are 
curious, eager, regret, and swell with passion, not knowing that 
these last two are especially outlawed by our guild. There is 
color in their souls, brilliant, livid, loud. Their hearts are yet 
young, fresh, and in the golden age. Despite our lessening 
fecundity, our over-schooling, 'city-fication,' and spoiling, the 
affectations we instil and the repressions we practise, they are 
still the light and hope of the world especially to us, who would 
know more of the soul of man and would penetrate to its deeper 
strata and study its origins." He further says of the feeling- 
instincts that "These radicals of man's psychic life, while some 
of them are decadent, rudimentary, and superseded, are often 
important just in proportion to the depth of the phylogenetic 
strata into which they strike their roots. Hunger, love, pride, 
and many other instinctive feelings, to say nothing of pleasure 
and pain, can be traced far down through the scale of vertebrate 
and to invertebrate life." 

The child must acquire control of the various emotions to 
the end that they may become his ally instead of his enemy. 
In the earliest days control of such low feelings as hunger through 
the habits of regular eating are installed. The regulation of this 
feeling is of life-long importance to every individual. Undoubt- 
edly lack of control caused by irregular hours of eating, gor- 
mandizing in response to sense-feelings and improper food, have 

1 Adolescence, II, p. 60. 



73 o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

led in later years to intemperance in many other forms. In- 
temperance in eating, drinking, smoking, drug-using, etc., 
usually result from pampered, unregulated appetites. 

The impulse to anger is early evinced. While contending 
for the high moral value of trained, intelligent anger, as evi- 
denced by voting against chicanery and evil, yet we should 
teach that childish passion must be curbed. The infant straight- 
ens out, becomes tense, clutches its fists, screams, and abandons 
itself wholly to the feelings, partly of satisfaction, partly of 
anger or fear. Not only are no habits of self-control thus ini- 
tiated, but positive habits of giving way to anger are developed. 
The man who gives way to anger, becomes dominated by animal 
manifestations, is always at a disadvantage with an adversary 
who keeps his head, who uses anger only to stimulate righteous 
action. Two general conditions must be observed in develop- 
ing control of anger; first the child must be removed as far as 
possible from irritating causes; second, correlatively, he must 
be kept as good-tempered as possible. One attempt at forming 
habits of good-nature is worth ten efforts at reforming habits 
of ill-nature. Good health, proper hygiene, and sunny-tempered 
parents, teachers, and companions go far toward insuring even- 
tempered children; while a child who is forced to live with 
crotchety, moody, and cranky parents and associates, easily 
becomes inoculated with touchiness, irritability, and flightiness. 

Because of the effect of assuming the outward expression of 
emotions in producing or increasing the emotion, it is highly 
valuable to the child to refrain from outbursts of temper, from 
giving way to foolish fears, or even to silly, causeless giggling. 
The conscious attempt to preserve a proper demeanor has a 
salutary effect in producing habits of emotional control. The 
hysterical, flighty woman, ready to go into spasms on hearing 
of a worm, a bug, or a fire; who throws a whole company 
into a panic in a time of excitement, is the one who was never 
taught to exercise proper self-restraint as a child. The cool, 
" heady" individual who averts panics, calms the crowd at a 
fire, or goes tranquilly into battle is the one who has schooled 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 731 

himself from childhood against such impulsive outbursts of 
emotion. The freedom of the moment has been bought by 
life-long discipline. 

Supreme wisdom is needed for developing well-regulated, 
healthful sex feelings. They are among the most deep-seated 
and far-reaching. Through the maintenance of perfect health, 
the restriction of food and appetites, proper exercise, healthy 
interests which monopolize the mental life, by giving plenty of 
physical work and wise companionship, sex feelings should 
become irradiated into the higher emotions connected with 
home-building, social interests, and altruism in general Just 
how to secure this ideal is not easy to prescribe. It is worthy 
of the wisdom of the sages. Thus far the primer of the subject 
has not been formulated. 

Drudgery and Moral Development. — James has said that to 
train the will we should do something frequently that is disa- 
greeable, something for no other reason than that we would 
rather not do it. It is true that one should learn not to shirk 
duty, but he should also early learn to shoulder responsibility. 
A better dictum than James's would be, "Learn to make 
every duty a pleasure. Throw yourself into your work in such 
a way that a white heat of interest is maintained in it." Pos- 
sibly not all details will prove entrancing, but interest in the 
ultimate end should ease the momentary difficulties encoun- 
tered. We need not search for difficulties and drudgery. They 
will appear in sufficient numbers. A false pedagogy has as- 
sumed that some subjects are better than others because they 
are more difficult and require more drudgery. Anything that 
produces a feeling of drudgery, which is only another way of 
saying repugnance, can scarcely commend itself as a means of 
developing moral power. 

Ideals, Expression, and Moral Growth. — James emphasizes 
the necessity of acting upon every emotion unless vacillation 
and weakness of will are to result. He italicizes the following 
maxim : " Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every 
resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you 



732 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain." 
He says: "It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the 
moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspira- 
tions communicate the new 'set' to the brain. . . . Every time 
a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing 
practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it works so as posi- 
tively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking 
the normal path of discharge." 

While I cannot coincide with this extreme opinion yet there 
is much truth in it. Considered in its extreme position it would 
be better not to read a book, to go to church or to the theatre, or 
to put one's self in the company of teachers who would stimulate 
high ideals. This I cannot believe. Even though one may 
not act immediately upon an emotional impulse the combined 
effects of all such emotions produce an attitude of mind which 
finally causes many acts in consonance with the emotions cher- 
ished. The theories of the conservation of forces, apperception, 
of ideo-motor action all lead us to believe that effects are cumu- 
lative and finally induce, directly or indirectly, multitudes of 
actions. The prose-poet has truthfully written, in substance: 
"Sow a thought and reap an act; sow an act and reap a habit; 
sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a 
destiny." 

But, on the whole, James is right. Ideals actualized in motor 
consequents make the most lasting effects. So thoroughly am 
I in accord with the spirit of his main thesis, that after inserting 
the foregoing qualifications, I quote with approval the entire 
paragraph apropos of this maxim: "No matter how full a 
reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good 
one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of 
every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain 
entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, 
hell is proverbially paved. And this is an obvious consequence 
of the principles we have laid down. A 'character,' as J. S. 
Mill says, 'is a completely fashioned will'; and a will, in the 
sense in which he means it, is an aggregate of tendencies to 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 733 

act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all the princi- 
pal emergencies of life. A tendency to act only becomes effec- 
tively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted fre- 
quency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain 
'grows' to their use. . . . There is no more contemptible type 
of human character than that of the nerveless sentimentalist 
and dreamer, who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility 
and emotion, but who never does a manly concrete deed. Rous- 
seau, inflaming all the mothers of France, by his eloquence, to 
follow Nature and nurse their babies themselves, while he sends 
his own children to the foundling hospital, is the classical exam- 
ple of what I mean. But every one of us in his measure, when- 
ever, after glowing for an abstractly formulated Good, he prac- 
tically ignores some actual case, among the squalid 'other 
particulars' of which that same Good lurks disguised, treads 
straight on Rousseau's path. All Goods are disguised by the 
vulgarity of their concomitants, in this work-a-day world; but 
woe to him who can only recognize them when he thinks them 
in their pure and abstract form! The habit of excessive novel- 
reading and theatre-going will produce true monsters in this 
line. The weeping of a Russian lady over the fictitious per- 
sonages in the play, while her coachman is freezing to death 
on his seat outside, is the sort of thing that everywhere happens 
on a less glaring scale. Even the habit of excessive indulgence 
in music, for those who are neither performers themselves nor 
musically gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual way, 
has probably a relaxing effect upon the character. One be- 
comes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompt- 
ing to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept 
up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have 
an emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterward in 
some active way. Let the expression be the least thing in the 
world — speaking genially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat 
in a horse-car, if nothing more heroic offers — but let it not fail 
to take place." * 

1 Principles of Psychology, I, p. 1 25. 



734 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Will and Deliberation. — Although it has been strongly argued 
that the voluntary execution of an act is largely conditioned 
upon the fund of allied habits which have been built up, yet 
it should be noted that the highest acts of will involve conscious 
deliberation. While it has been strongly urged that the surest 
way of developing strength of will in a given direction is to 
early inculcate habits in that direction, yet this should not be 
taken to mean that one is to become an automaton. It does 
not imply that the child should not become a reflective being. 
He should most certainly be early accustomed to reflecting upon 
his conduct. A feeling of responsibility for sound judgment 
and righteous action should early gradually become character- 
istics of one's life. It is a perverted and pernicious doctrine 
of interest and will which assumes that youth are irresponsible 
beings who may be excused for every deviation from the path 
of rectitude on the ground that they are only youth. The 
doctrine is sometimes carried so far as to exonerate even uni- 
versity students for committing things which would land other 
adults in the penitentiary. Though college education should 
and does prolong the period of infancy or plasticity, yet all 
training has been misdirected if it has not developed a habit of 
serious reflection upon every important step to be taken. It 
should not produce vacillation and hesitation, but rather sound 
judgment made rapid by the acquired habit of always reflecting 
and marshalling all sides of a question. Individual duty and 
responsibility are among the highest lessons to be learned and 
the most difficult. 

Habit, Will, and Character. — A trained will means a controlled 
mind and body, an organism that responds to the behests of 
conscience. This ideal condition can only be secured through 
oft-repeated actions in the desired direction. Every action 
performed by a child, whether initiated by himself or under 
compulsion, leaves a tendency to a repetition of the same action. 
Of course any process self-initiated is more potent by far 
than one performed under compulsion. Hence the importance 
of securing deliberate righteous action on the part of the 



VOLITION AND MORAL EDUCATION 735 

child. But right conduct, even though compulsory, is better 
for the child's future than wrong conduct selected by the 
child. Every righteous action contributes to the fund of future 
capital which constitutes real character. What one does in a 
controlled manner when off his guard reveals one's real char- 
acter. To be sure most of us masquerade a great deal and 
do many things that are put on for the occasion. These may 
give us reputation, but they are not parts of real character. It 
is related by Schaeffer 1 that the Pennsylvania German gives 
vent to his feelings in profanity in his own native dialect. To 
show further how control is only secured through habitual 
reactions he adds that, "As soon as he says his prayers he 
reverts to the language of the pulpit and of Luther's Bible 
because he there finds the words which express the deepest 
wants and emotions of the human soul." 

1 Thinking and Learning to Think, p. 93. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
GENERAL DISCIPLINE AND EDUCATIONAL VALUES 

Meaning of General Discipline. — How do the various special 
educational activities which a child undergoes affect his general 
powers? This is a question of vital importance in determining 
educational practice. The popular mind has always had a 
ready reply. The answer is substantially that exercise is the 
sine qua non of growth, and the further assumption is made that 
the effects produced are not confined to the special organs or 
powers involved. It is held that the effects of training are 
general and that whatever is gained by any organ or power 
through a given kind of activity will increase the efficiency of 
all other organs or powers and can be utilized in all other situa- 
tions in life. The strength and skill derived through pitching 
hay, swinging Indian clubs, and rowing, for example, can be 
used in skating, swimming, constructing watches, or in resist- 
ing fatigue when under strain in professional duties. 

Analogous reasonings are followed out concerning mental 
growth and exercise. Each subject is assumed to be a sort of 
mental grindstone upon which the wits are sharpened. We are 
told that the study of arithmetic, grammar, etc., will develop 
general strength of mind — a sort of mental muscle — which can 
be drawn upon in any emergency. It is assumed that the one 
who is strong in arithmetic will be equally proficient in geometry, 
botany, or foreign languages, because of the power gained 
through the exercise in arithmetic. The traditional subject 
most recommended for strengthening the reasoning powers is 
arithmetic. Robert Recorde was the author of a book on 
algebra published in 1557, called The Whetstone 0} Witte, evi- 
dently because he regarded it as a sovereign means of sharpen- 

736 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 737 

ing the faculties. Nature study is supposed to train "the power 
of observation," and grammar has maintained its place largely 
because of its general "disciplinary" value. It is said to 
develop keenness of perception, to strengthen the memory, 
make one logical, give one insight, etc., etc. While some argue 
the superior efficacy of this or that subject, there is a prevailing 
impression, even among many teachers, that it does not matter 
very much what one studies provided it is difficult. The exer- 
cise required by hard work and the "discipline" resulting there- 
from are the chief considerations. The how is thought to be a 
much more important consideration than the what. 

The exponent of general discipline speaks, for example, of 
training the senses, meaning thereby the exercise of seeing, 
hearing, or touching for the sake of the exercise alone.* What 
is seen, heard, or touched is regarded as of minor consequence. 
The exercise is considered the important thing. By the process 
the senses are supposed to have taken on additional power so 
that they may see, hear, or touch anything and everything the 
better. Primary teachers often give exercises in what they 
term "sense training." It consists in presenting various colors, 
forms, and objects to be seen and identified, sounds to be heard 
and remembered or reproduced, various muscular activities to 
be witnessed and reproduced, etc. By this means it is supposed 
that the senses are "trained" for any situation in life. The 
exercises are certainly good as far as they go, but the reasons 
ascribed are bad pedagogy. 

Great stress has been placed upon the assumed principle that 
the mind is a sort of homogeneous organ or power which proper 
gymnastics or grooming can awaken to activity. Through this 
activity it is supposed to have gained strength, and this strength 
is further supposed to be applicable in any direction. It is as- 
sumed that mental power is something perfectly general and 
may be applied to any specific problem. As Dr. De Garmo has 
stated the theory (in repudiating it), it assumes "that the mind 
can store up mechanical force in a few subjects, like grammar 
and mathematics, which can be used with efficiency in any de- 



738 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

partment of life." "That is," observes Dr. Hinsdale, 1 "the 
process that formal discipline assumes may be likened to the 
passage of energy from the fires of the sun, first to vegetation, 
and then to the coal beds and subterranean reservoirs of oil 
and gas, whence it is again drawn forth to cook a breakfast, to 
warm a drawing-room, to light a city, or to propel a steamship 
across the ocean." 

Prevalence of the Theory of General Discipline. — Although 
many will admit that elementary school studies are largely 
those that are needed for practical purposes and for general 
information, yet when the high school is considered it will not 
be so readily conceded. The high school and the college are 
considered chiefly as institutions affording mental discipline 
and the cultivation of mental power. When I entered the uni- 
versity as a student the distinguished president in his address 
to new students held that the great aim of education is the 
acquisition of mental power instead of facts. He stated that 
he had ranked high in mathematics once, but felt sure he could 
not then pass a freshman entrance examination in mathematics. 
He regarded the derived power, however, as a permanent pos- 
session which he had turned to account in every mental feat 
in later life. He was a great man, but he had a faulty psychol- 
ogy. His interpretation of the processes of acquisition, of for- 
getting, and of mental growth and development was entirely 
erroneous. 

In the schools pupils frequently hear the faulty notions of 
mental growth and development dinned into their ears. When 
they inquire concerning the relation of their studies to life they 
are often put off with the answer that their minds are becoming 
developed, that the pursuit of the subject is for their good, and 
that though they will never use the knowledge gained in that 
subject, the hard work will develop their perception, their 
memory, their imagination, their reason, etc. Platform speak- 
ers at the opening exercises emphasize the thought that if the 
pupils will only submit patiently to the prescribed exercises, 

1 Studies in Education, p. 46. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 739 

later in life they will be armored for any sort of mental fray. 
In their commencement orations the fledglings echo the refrain 
about the paramount importance of mental discipline, though 
what they mean by it is still more hazy and undefined in their 
minds than in the minds of their elders. 

Thorndike in discussing the same question says: 1 "It is 
clear that the common view is that the words accuracy, quick- 
ness, discrimination, memory, observation, attention, concen- 
tration, judgment, reasoning, etc., stand for some real and 
elemental abilities which are the same no matter what material 
they work upon; that these elemental abilities are altered by 
special disciplines to a large extent; that they retain those altera- 
tions when turned to other fields; that thus in a more or less 
mysterious way learning to do one thing well will make one do 
better things that in concrete appearance have absolutely no com- 
munity with it. 

"The mind is regarded as a machine of which the different 
faculties are parts. Experiences being thrown in at one end, 
perception perceives them, discrimination tells them apart, 
memory retains them and so on. By training the machine is 
made to work more quickly, efficiently and economically with 
all sorts of experiences. Or in a still cruder type of thinking the 
mind is a storage battery which can be loaded with will-power 
or intellect or judgment, giving the individual 'a surplus of 
mind to expend.' General names for a host of individual proc- 
esses such as judgment, precision, concentration are falsely 
taken to refer to pieces of mental machinery which we can once 
for all get into working order, or still worse to amounts of 
some thing which can be stored up in bank to be drawn on at 
leisure." 

The doctrine of educational gymnastics has gained an alarm- 
ing hold. Teachers are told that "mental power is a more 
valuable result of teaching than mere knowledge, and hence 
the process of acquiring becomes more important than the 
knowledge acquired. Power abides; facts are forgotten." 

1 Educational Psychology, p. 84. 



74o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Objections. — The theory has gained most of its support from 
the fact that many of the best trained minds down to the present 
have taken certain traditional courses and it is thereby argued 
that being the best trained and having had certain courses they 
must have derived their power through those courses. It is for- 
gotten that those scholastic courses have been taken by those 
individuals because they were the best individuals at the start 
and therefore became students and continued as such. Modern 
education is demonstrating that entirely different courses may 
attract the best individuals, and that these individuals at the 
close of the pursuit of such courses are still among the best. 
It is being clearly demonstrated as fallacious to assume that the 
best individuals are best because of a particular course of study. 
It is equally fallacious to assume that the wide variety of powers 
necessary to place an individual among the great or distinguished 
have all been developed through a narrow range of experiences. 

A further fallacy comes from likening the mind to the muscles 
of the body, which by specific exercise can develop strength that 
can be utilized in a variety of ways. Even in this physical 
analogy there is much fallacy. Dr. Hinsdale says: "The force 
engendered by any defined exertion of physical power is fully 
available for all like kinds of exercise, but only partially so for 
unlike kinds. Thus, the power or skill engendered by driving 
nails can all be used in driving nails, but only partially in shov- 
ing a plane. . . . Activity tends, first, to invigorate the whole 
body — 'to tone it up,' as we say — and, secondly, to overflow 
into new channels lying near to the one in which it was created. 
. . . The facts do not prove that a reservoir of power can be 
accumulated by any one kind of effort that can be used indiffer- 
ently for any and all purposes. There is no such thing as a 
formal physical discipline. Energy created by activity flowing 
in one channel cannot be turned at will into any other channel. 
A boxer is not perforce a fencer. A pugilist in training does 
not train promiscuously, but according to certain strict methods 
that experience has approved." * 

1 Studies in Education, p. 46. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 741 

Professor O'Shea writes the following in his very excellent 
chapter on "Formal Discipline": 1 "The physiological princi- 
ple upon which the doctrine of formal discipline is based is seen 
upon examination not to be quite true as it is generally stated. 
Muscular activity which is concerned with particular employ- 
ments and undertakings does not beget a power that can be 
expended without loss in the accomplishment of any task what- 
soever. The oarsman cannot turn all the energy he develops 
in rowing to good account in pitching hay or pulling beans or 
shoeing a horse or carrying a hod on his shoulder. The pugilist 
cannot employ without loss in another form of occupation the 
brawn gained in his training. No particular form of muscular 
activity, in short, can be made to yield power that can be util- 
ized in other ways without some waste. And why? Because 
rowing, for example, calls into play in definite combinations 
muscles and their energizing nerve centres which are not co- 
ordinated in precisely this way in any different activity." 

Professor Hanus remarks: "Power means ability to do some- 
thing — to bring about results. The results achieved will always 
be in some one field of activity, however; and the kind of power 
developed through the pursuit of a given subject will conse- 
quently be usually restricted to power in dealing with data of 
a particular sort. That is to say, power in physics is different 
from power in Latin; and these forms of power are different 
from power in plastic art or pure mathematics, as these last are 
different from each other. There is no such thing as power in 
general that can be cultivated through the pursuit of any one 
subject, and can then be drawn upon at any time for successful 
achievement in other subjects. That a man shows power first 
in classics and afterward in mathematics or botany, for example, 
does not prove that the man's mathematical or scientific ability 
was developed through the classics. It proves only that the 
man has both linguistic and mathematical or scientific ability. 
It does happen, of course, that different subjects like mathe- 
matics and physics, or physics and chemistry, or drawing and 

1 Education as Adjustment, p. 248. 



742 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

painting, are closely related; and hence that the data of one 
subject are often found to some extent in another, and also that 
the method of one subject can be appropriately applied to 
another. . . . But, in general, the relations of the subjects will 
not be close enough to justify the assumption that power may 
be developed through one subject for use in other subjects." x 

Observations and Experiments. — We need but to recall the 
discussions concerning memory, sensory training, apperception, 
and training in powers of observation to justify our conclusion 
that the training of psychological powers is comparatively 
specialized in its effects. For example, the child who has been 
practised in observing colors is not thereby made more expert 
in discriminating tones in music, more accurate in spelling, or in 
arithmetical processes. We hear much fiction concerning the 
efficiency of certain studies, especially natural science, in train- 
ing to acuteness of observation. It has been taught that training 
to observe in one field will insure skill in other directions as 
well. Now, as a matter of fact easily verified by common ex- 
perience, training in observation is largely special in its effects 
rather than perfectly general. Training in observing zoological 
specimens, for example, will not give increased skill in observing 
music, grammatical niceties, or spring fashions. 

But in order to test the matter in a more scientific way than 
is possible by unsystematic observation of various effects of 
training a great variety and amount of experimental work has 
been performed. These experiments have been designed to 
test the influence of learning one kind of activity upon the 
acquisition of some different kind of activity. Much of the 
experimentation has been in the realm of memory. Some of 
the best has been in the realm of experimental tests in perception 
or training in power of observation. The best and most ex- 
haustive experimental work in this line has been done under the 
direction of Dr. Thorndike at Columbia University. Thorn- 
dike and Woodworth made a great variety of experiments to 
discover the influence of training in estimating weights, dis- 

1 Educational Aims and Educational Values, p. 8. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 743 

tances, and areas upon other subsequent forms of learning. 
In Thorndike's own words: 1 

"Individuals practiced estimating the areas of rectangles 
from 10 to 100 sq. cm. in size until a very marked improvement 
was attained. The improvement in accuracy for areas of the 
same size but of different shape due to this training was only 
44 per cent, as great as that for areas of the same shape and 
size. For areas of the same shape but from 140 to 300 sq. cm. 
in size the improvement was 30 per cent, as great. For areas of 
different shape and from 140 to 400 sq. cm. in size the improve- 
ment was 52 per cent, as great. 

"Training in estimating weights of from 40 to 120 grams 
resulted in only 39 per cent, as much improvement in estimating 
weights from 120 to 1,800 grams. Training in estimating lines 
from .5 to 1.5 inches long (resulting in a reduction of error to 
25 per cent, of the initial amount) resulted in no improvement 
in the estimation of lines 6 to 12 inches long. 

"Training in perceiving words containing e and 5 gave a 
certain amount of improvement in speed and accuracy in that 
special ability. In the ability to perceive words containing i 
and t, s and p, c and a, e and r, a and n, I and 0, misspelled 
words and A 's, there was an improvement in speed of only 39 
per cent, as much as in the ability specially trained, and in 
accuracy of only 25 per cent, as much. Training in perceiving 
English verbs gave a reduction in time of nearly 21 per cent, 
and in omission of 70 per cent. The ability to perceive other 
parts of speech showed a reduction in time of 3 per cent., but 
an increase in omissions of over 100 per cent. 

"These experiments showed very clearly the influence of (1) 
the acquisition during special training of ideas of method of 
general utility, and also (2) of facility with certain elements that 
appeared in many other complexes. Instances of (1) are learn- 
ing in the 10 to 100 cm. training series that one has a tendency 
to over-estimate all areas and consciously making a discount for 
this tendency, no matter what the size or shape of the surface 

1 Educational Psychology, p. go et seq. 



744 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

may be; learning to look especially for the less common letter 
(e. g., s in the case of e-s words, p in the case of s-p words) in 
the training series and adopting the habit for all similar work; 
learning to estimate areas in comparison with a mental standard 
rather than the objective i sq. cm., 25 sq. cm., and 100 sq. cm. 
squares which each experimenter had before him (after one gets 
mental standards of the areas he judges more accurately if he 
pays no attention whatever to the objective standards). An 
instance of (2) is the uniform increase of speed of eye movements 
in all the perception tests through training in one, an increase 
often gained at the expense of accuracy. 

"In the opinion of the authors these experiments show that: 

"Improvement in any single mental function need not im- 
prove the ability in functions commonly called by the same 
name. It may injure it. 

"Improvement in any single mental function rarely brings 
about equal improvement in any other function, no matter how 
similar, for the working of every mental function-group is con- 
ditioned by the nature of the data in each particular case. 

"The very slight amount of variation in the nature of the 
data necessary to affect the efficiency of a function-group makes 
it fair to infer that no change in the data, however slight, is 
without effect on the function. The loss in the efficiency of a 
function trained with certain data, as we pass to data more and 
more unlike the first, makes it fair to infer that there is always 
a point where the loss is complete, a point beyond which the 
influence of the training has not extended. The rapidity of 
this loss, that is, its amount in the case of data very similar to 
the data on which the function was trained, makes it fair to 
infer that this point is nearer than has been supposed. 

"The general consideration of the cases of retention or of loss 
of practice effect seems to make it likely that spread of practice 
occurs only where identical elements are concerned in the in- 
fluencing and influenced function." 

Dr. Bagley arranged some observations "to determine whether 
the habit of producing neat papers in arithmetic will function 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 745 

with reference to neat written work in other studies; the tests 
were confined to the intermediate grades. The results are 
most startling in their failure to show the slightest improvement 
in language and spelling papers, although the improvement in 
the arithmetic papers was noticeable from the very first." Dr. 
Bagley further comments upon this by saying: "The very de- 
cided trend of all this experimental evidence seems to indicate 
that the theoretical impossibility of a generalized habit — either 
'marginal' or subconscious — is thoroughly substantiated by 
accurate tests." x 

Mr. Lewis, of Dartmouth, conducted an investigation in 
1 902-1 903 to discover some of the correlations among the dif- 
ferent mental powers and to test specifically whether it is true 
"that the good reasoners in one subject are the good general 
reasoners? Or, more specifically, is the good mathematical 
reasoner the good reasoner in every-day practical affairs, and in 
law?" He says that of the twenty-four groups of high-school 
pupils compared in mathematical reasoning and practical 
reasoning, the five in each group standing highest were selected 
as conspicuous for their ability in mathematical reasoning. Of 
the 120 thus distinguished, 63 per cent, were at the foot of the 
list in the tests of practical reasoning. On the other hand, 47 
per cent, of those at the foot of the list, judged by mathematical 
reasoning, were conspicuous for their position at the head of 
the list in the practical reasoning tests. As a supplementary 
test, and one still more convincing, he examined the records 
from ten college graduating classes of men who had studied 
mathematics and law, and compared their relative efficiency in 
the two subjects. Mr. Lewis remarks that "50 per cent, of 
the best students in law were conspicuous for their poor show- 
ing in mathematics; and 42 per cent, of those poorest in law 
stood at the head of the series in mathematics." His diagram 
indicates at a glance the striking comparison. The further 
comment should be quoted: "These tests are surely convincing 
of one thing, viz., that students able in mathematical reasoning 

1 The Educative Process, p. 208. 



746 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

are not even generally able in practical reasoning and law. And 
by an allowable inference, persons able in one kind of reasoning 
are frequently not able in other kinds. But once having estab- 
lished this point, the whole theory of faculties falls to the ground, 
and with it the stronghold of formal discipline." 1 

Dr. Naomi Norsworthy conducted some experiments upon 
school-children to test the effects of practice and reached the 
following conclusions: 2 "It seems probable that certain func- 
tions which are of importance in school work, such as quickness 
in arithmetic, accuracy in spelling, attention to forms, etc., are 
highly specialized and not secondary results of some general 
function. That just as there is no such thing as general memory, 
so there is no such thing as general quickness or accuracy of 
observation. . . . Accuracy in spelling is independent of accu- 
racy in multiplication, and quickness in arithmetic is not found 
with quickness in marking misspelled words; ability to pick out 
the word ' boy ' on a printed page is no guarantee that the child 
will be able to pick out a geometrical form with as great ease and 
accuracy." 

Some experiments have been performed which seem to show 
that as a result of exercise of one kind some slight gain of power 
may be derived in other directions. Ebert and Meumann, 3 
through a long series of experiments on memory, were led to 
believe that some definite gain was perceptible in other direc- 
tions than that secured in the training material. Experiments 
in exercising with the right hand show that not only the right 
hand may gain, but that the left hand does also. 4 But Swift dis- 
tinctly disclaims that such results lend any support to the theory 
of formal education. He says: 5 "It would be a mistake to 
suppose that such experiments in cross-education give support 
to the doctrine of formal discipline. There is no evidence to 

1U A Study in Formal Discipline," School Review, 13 : 289-291. 

2 New York Teachers' Monographs, 1902, vol. IV, pp. 96-99. 

3 Archiv fur die Gesamte Psychologie, vol. IV, 1905. 

4 See Davis, Yale Studies in Psychology, vol. VIII; and Swift, American 
Journal of Psychology, vol. XIV. 

6 Mind in the Making, p. 190. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 747 

show that training has general value. Indeed, it all argues 
strongly for the influence of content." Coover and Angell 
believed that through a training in discriminating tones some 
increase occurred in the discrimination in shades of colors. 1 
Judd reports some experiments of his in which judging one 
kind of lines seemed to have some influence in determining the 
length of other lines. 2 

But even in the case of gain in one function by activity of 
another, the explanation of the gain does not reinforce the old 
theory of formal discipline. Most of the authorities explain 
the gain as coming from the discovery of better methods of 
learning; or that the materials learned or the organs involved 
possess common elements. 3 Angell believes that the gain may 
be explained in terms of attention and the formation of certain 
generalized habits of acting. In all exacting work one learns 
how to shut out distracting factors and in that way to attend 
better. This is rather negative. Real attention depends upon 
the content of mind — upon apperception and association. 
Even Judd, 4 who is one of the strongest exponents of the belief 
in generalized training, seems to explain the matter in terms 
of association and the generalization of habits. 

Colvin 5 believes that there may be a transference or spread 
of effects if there are common elements; or if general ideals or 
attitudes are produced in connection with a given activity. He 
argues that it is the business of teaching to promote this trans- 
ference through the establishment of purposive associations. 
He shows that oftentimes the child is one-sided in develop- 
ment, e. g., a poor visualizer, and therefore a poor reader. 
This particular power should be connected with the reading 
process and made more efficient. He says: "In seeking to 

1 American Journal of Psychology, vol. XVIII, 1907. 

2 Educational Review, June, 1908. 

3 See Pillsbury, Educational Review, June, 1908; Fracker, Psychological 
Review, Monograph Supplement, June, 1908; Bennett, Formal Discipline. 

* Loc. cit. 

5 "Some Facts in Partial Justification of the So-called Dogma of Formal 
Discipline," University of Illinois Bulletin, October, 1909. 



748 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

secure transfer, especially where purpose does not play an im- 
portant part, see to it that the stimulus which is to call forth 
the desired reaction is such that it may be a common element in 
many objective situations. If, for example, it is desired to 
promote in general the habit of observation, it will be unwise 
to cultivate this habit in a very narrow and unusual field of 
experience. Habits of observation may doubtless be secured 
by training the observer to give careful attention to objects ap- 
pearing under the microscope. This training in observation 
will on the whole probably have less possibilities of transfer to 
other fields than observation cultivated in the study of more 
common objects of life, such as those of plants and animals 
that are often met with in the daily environment." 

In the cultivation of the emotions Colvin urges the estab- 
lishment of certain general emotional attitudes through many 
specific acts inspiring the emotions. Is this not the very best 
kind of anti-formalistic doctrine? The very point which the 
anti-formalist emphasizes is that without definite attempts the 
establishment of these associations will probably not be made 
and if not made there is no transference. The anti-formalist 
argues for a breadth and variety of experience and the purposive 
establishment of bonds of association among these experiences. 
The child easily fails to see the general rule or law in a particu- 
lar example and after learning the statement of general laws, 
almost as frequently fails to know which general rule applies 
to the particular example. My own entire discussion of mem- 
ory, association, and the conceptual process has sought to em- 
phasize the necessity of generalizing all specific knowledge — 
transferring the effects. But at the same time it is fully recog- 
nized that generalizing and associating do not necessarily take 
place so that universals are always seen in particulars or par- 
ticulars in universals. The accomplishment of this is really 
the large problem of teaching. The uneducated man gets 
plenty of isolated experiences, but he does not universalize them. 

The fact that the practice of a habit until it becomes crystal- 
lized renders it difficult to acquire other habits is an argument 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 749 

showing the isolation and insulation of structures and functions. 
Fracker has clearly shown that improvement in one direction 
may definitely hinder improvement in other directions. The 
cases of prodigies who are so hyper-developed in one or a 
few powers and so abnormally under-developed in others are 
good evidence against any doctrine of the general spread of 
effects. 

One of the most significant lines of psychological investiga- 
tion in throwing light upon the question of general mental de- 
velopment through special training has been the investigation 
of memory training. The popular mind declares that a child 
should memorize gems of poetry, proverbs, entire poetic and 
prose selections, etc., in the perfect belief that his general 
memory will be strengthened. Never was there a greater fic- 
tion. While it is a good thing to memorize gems of poetry, 
the reason usually assigned is a bad one pedagogically. The 
quotations should be learned for the sake of the thought and 
not as memory training. By careful experimentation James 
and others have shown, and I have confirmed, that long prac- 
tice in memorizing material of one kind aids memory very little, 
if any, for totally different things. Even long attention to 
memorizing of poetic writing does not assist much, if any, in 
memorizing prose. Still less would the poetry assist in the 
memory of chemical names and geological specimens. Every 
one can confirm this in his own experience. Every adult 
student, according to the popular doctrine, ought to possess a 
perfect memory for all things. The poor memory has been 
crammed and exercised on various studies for upward of twenty 
years, but how many adults remember the names of persons 
they meet any better than they did in childhood? How many 
married men have infallible memories for mailing their wives' 
letters, or purchasing the spool of thread, or can recall the dress 
that somebody wore at the party, or the decorations of the 
house, or the setting of the table, the pattern of the glassware, 
etc. ? I suspect that the more the mind has been exercised with 
Latin roots, antediluvian fossils, amoeboid specimens, or mathe- 



750 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

matical formulae, the less apt the every-day affairs are to be 
remembered. 

We know that there are many types of memories. One per- 
son has a good verbal memory, a second a memory for faces, 
a third for dates, a fourth has a good memory for facts scien- 
tifically arranged but a poor desultory memory, another a mem- 
ory for musical tones, etc. Now if memory exercise in general 
operated according to the hypothesis of formal discipline should 
not one's memories for all types be equally good? The fact is 
we have memories rather than memory. The same line of dis- 
cussion would be applicable to imaginations. Few people have 
imaginative powers equally strong in all directions. Still more 
striking are the examples of specialized development in those 
with phenomenal memories and imbecile understanding. Again, 
if the dogma of formal discipline were true, why should not the 
intellect, the feelings, and the will all be developed equally? 
As a matter of fact, we know that there is often strikingly un- 
equal development among these powers in the same person. 
There are, for example, persons of wonderful mental acumen, 
but cold logicians without a sign of emotionalism. Then there 
is the enthusiast whose emotions often lead his judgment astray. 
We even frequently classify individuals and peoples upon the 
basis of these differences, as choleric, phlegmatic, intellectual, 
impulsive, explosive, deliberative, etc. With any given power 
or faculty we may often find great extremes in the same indi- 
vidual. Take the judgment, for example. As Dr. Hinsdale 
remarks: "No curious observer can fail to notice how practical 
ability to judge and to reason tends to run in special channels. 
Eminence in microscopy, in sanitary science, in engineering, in 
philology, in pedagogy, in a thousand specialized pursuits, is no 
guaranty of ability in other matters, or even of good sense in the 
common affairs of life. The only astrologist whom I have ever 
happened to know personally was an eminent civil engineer." ' 

Oppenheim 2 wrote: "Proficiency in one direction does not 
necessarily imply an equal proficiency in others, and a bankrupt 

1 Op. cit., p. 52. 2 The Development of the Child, p. 92. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 751 

in business may be a brilliant success in rearing offspring. . . . 
A man may be a brilliant mathematician, or a profound philos- 
opher, without necessarily showing a fitting appreciation of the 
physical and mental needs of his family." Thorndike re- 
marks: 1 "The mental traits involved in the pursuit of a school 
study are always complex and vary with the different aspects 
of the subject and the different methods of teaching used. For 
instance physical geography taught as a science demands differ- 
ent capacities from commercial geography taught as it commonly 
is. Formal grammar, theme writing, the history of literature, 
and aesthetic appreciation may all be called ' English,' but they 
depend upon capacities that have little in common." 

Professor Carpenter, in combating the theory of vicarious 
mental discipline, said: 2 "Men trained almost exclusively in 
Latin and Greek are quite as likely to write badly as to write 
well." And Professor Baker wrote in the same book 3 that 
"discipline in and of itself is of much less efficacy than was 
formerly supposed. It has been demonstrated that good intel- 
lectual habits are not necessarily transferable; that a high 
degree of accuracy in one line of activity is often found com- 
patible with actual slovenliness in another. In fine, that dis- 
cipline is valuable in and for the field of work in which it is 
given, and valueless for anything outside that field. Discipline 
in reading and writing, then, while it would make good readers 
and good writers of the pupils, would do nothing else for them." 

Adams 4 sets out, in his characteristic way, some of the ab- 
surdities of formal training when applied to moral education. 
He says: "What could call into play more of a boy's faculties 
than orchard-robbing? Almost all the virtues are trained in 
the exercise of this vice. The necessary planning demands 
prudence, forethought, caution. The choosing of the right 
moment implies careful observation, judicious estimate of char- 
acter, and intelligent calculation of probabilities. The actual 

1 Educational Psychology, p. 35. 

2 Carpenter, Baker, and Scott, The Teaching of English, p. 17. 3 P. 78. 
4 Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, p. 111. 



752 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

expedition demands the greatest courage, firmness, self-control. 
Climbing the tree and seizing the fruit are only possible as the 
result of the most accurate adjustment of means to end. All 
the results aimed at in the most liberal intellectual education 
are here secured; no teacher is required; and the boy enjoys 
it. Why does not apple-stealing rank with Latin and mathe- 
matics as a mental gymastic?" 

Arguments from Variability in Powers. — Were the doctrine 
of general discipline true there ought to be no variations among 
our powers. The power gained in one capacity is said to be 
carried over to all others. All varieties of accomplishment 
dependent upon a given power ought then to be equally at- 
tained. For example, one ought to be as proficient in algebra 
as in history, as proficient in geometry as in algebra, as good in 
grammar as in botany, etc. But it needs no demonstration to 
convince that there are great variations in accomplishment 
among different subjects by the same individual, and what is 
more, these varieties in accomplishment often represent funda- 
mental differences in capacity. One may be inclined to natural 
science and have poor mathematical ability, be a fine linguist 
and sadly lacking in mathematical reasoning, or skilful in 
music and poorly equipped for logic and philosophy. Who 
ever saw many musicians with a philosophical bent of mind ? 
It is even true that a given individual may have rare power in 
algebraic mathematics, where all depends upon logical trains 
of thought and power of abstraction, but may be very inefficient 
in geometric mathematics, where so much depends upon those 
qualities of visual imagination necessary to a good topograph- 
ical mind. How many would be willing to be judged mentally 
for all situations by ability to spell ? So generally is inaptitude 
for spelling recognized that no one jeopardizes his reputation 
by confessing to being far short in this particular. Probably 
many cases of poor orthography bespeak carelessness in the 
matter rather than the lack of ability, but multitudes justly take 
refuge under the plea of incapacity. It is but necessary to note 
also the ease with which some children learn to spell. Those 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 753 

who have to toil at it and then achieve indifferent results are apt 
to marvel at the celerity of the more favored ones. Thorndike 1 
reports a class test in spelling which shows that the best speller 
had nineteen out of twenty words correct, while the poorest 
missed all but three. Any teacher in the work could duplicate 
the list. 

Biological Evidence. — One of the most convincing arguments 
against the theory of formal discipline comes from biology. 
Exercise of an organ or function tends to produce development 
of that organ or function. While such exercise may have a 
general tonic effect upon the rest of the organism, growth and 
development are largely limited to the parts exercised. Our 
study of the evolution of the various powers of body and mind 
showed clearly the effects of stimulations long-continued upon 
given portions of the organism. We noted, for example, how 
special forms of activity had changed the muzzle and the feet 
of the polar bear; how particular modes of life had developed in 
other animals peculiar claws, teeth, hoofs, hair, eyes, ears, etc.; 
how changes occur in plants when removed from one environ- 
ment to another. In all of these it was evident that the applica- 
tion of new stimuli to a given organ or function made its effects 
manifest almost wholly in that limited portion. In a negative 
way the withdrawal of a particular stimulus causes atrophy in the 
special organ. One of the best illustrations of this is in the case 
of cave animals, whose eyes have atrophied and become rudi- 
mentary. The animals as a whole are little affected. Simi- 
larly changes in hoofs, fur, legs, fins, teeth, etc., take place with 
little correlative effect upon other portions of the animal. 

The theory of the localization of function and all the facts 
supporting it are arguments against the theory of formal dis- 
cipline. Special localized areas and special functions could never 
have .been developed had not the effects of exercise been cu- 
mulative at certain points rather than evenly diffused. Nour- 
ishment was supplied to the particular parts in excess of that 
supplied to any other parts. Consequently growth and de- 

1 Principles of Teaching, p. 83. 



754 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

velopment followed in the particular directions. A given por- 
tion of the brain controlling a special function may be materially 
increased in development without much affecting other parts. 
Certain portions unexercised may atrophy without causing de- 
generation of other parts. Again, a given area may sometimes 
be completely excised without seriously affecting the remain- 
ing portions. Only in very low unspecialized forms may 
substitution of other areas take place. If the theory of general 
powers were true, any portion of the brain ought to be able to 
take on the function originally controlled by the part destroyed. 
If the doctrine of general powers were true, it would be incon- 
ceivable that localization and specialization should ever have 
taken place. Any organ ought, according to that theory 7 , to 
be able to control any function, and an undifferentiated, homo- 
geneous structure would have served equally as well as the 
exceedingly complex, specialized brain which we possess. 
With the gradual isolating, insulating, and specializing of func- 
tions, however, efficiency has arisen. 

On the other hand, biology teaches just as definitely that 
each organism is a unity and that any influence affecting one 
structure or function of the organism will have some influence 
upon all other structures and functions of the organism. But 
there are all degrees of interrelation among the structures and 
functions of the same unitary organism. Some are exceedingly 
close, others so remote that two organs are sometimes almost 
as distinct as if belonging to different individuals. Conse- 
quently, if two structures or functions are very intimately re- 
lated, as the hand and the arm, or logical memory and good 
judgment, the exercise of the one is certain to influence the 
other considerably. But if the two are very remotely connected, 
as the big toe and the ability to appreciate musical tones or colors, 
the exercise of the one will have little effect upon the other — 
in many instances so little as to be practically negligible. To 
take an extreme case of the lack of transfer of pathological 
effects, the amputation of a foot probably never has any effect 
upon sight or hearing. Conversely, the effects of the exer- 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 755 

cise of the eye or the foot have no influence upon each other. 
While the formal school arts do not show such extreme degrees 
of remoteness, are there not very great differences in functions 
and structures involved in acquiring such arts as color work 
and grammatical syntax, or as rote singing and cube root? 
Are the differences not so great that the effect of learning one 
would be of almost infinitesimal aid in learning the other? 
It is certainly manifest that if we wish to secure improvement 
in color discrimination or the multiplication table, the process 
must be mainly direct. 

Donaldson 1 wrote: "The avowed aim of certain educational 
schemes is to produce a rounded, balanced individual as an out- 
come of the training process, a psychological result comparable 
with the ideal human form at one time sought in sculpture. 
Since conditions of life on the globe are not uniform, and since 
man only approaches the ideal in his development when in har- 
mony with his surroundings, such a universal ideal is as fanciful 
as was the notion of Goethe concerning the 'Urpflanze'; a 
sort of grandfather of all the plants possessing the characters 
of its multiform descendants, yet displaying them with an 
ancestral simplicity worthy of the golden age of which it had 
formed a part. As a matter of fact, the education of an indi- 
vidual is a very local problem in its details. The weak points 
in the central system must be strengthened, that the abilities 
given by the strong ones may be guided by some sort of bal- 
anced judgment. But the balanced and judicial states are, so 
far as they go, plainly statical, and the vigor of a healthy rest- 
lessness is very necessary if there is to be advance. While 
growth continues, things bodily and mental are lop-sided, for 
growth is never general, but accentuated, now at one spot, now 
at another. But this very unbalance, if only it be the outcome 
of natural endowment and not of a priori training, gives a vigor 
not otherwise to be obtained. The history of the normal indi- 
vidual is through various phases of unstable equilibrium and 
awkward strength, to the poise and quiescence of late maturity, 

1 Growth of the Brain, p. 356 



756 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

yet in any community examples of all these phases are found as 
terminal states in both old and young. The formal methods, 
therefore, which shall recognize, in the presence of these enor- 
mous differences in endowment, the dynamic value of the 
natural inequalities of growth, and utilize them, preferring ir- 
regularity to the roundness gained by pruning, will most closely 
follow that which takes place within the body, and thus prove 
most effective." 

Scientific Conception of Mind. — "The science of education 
should at once rid itself of its conception of the mind as a sort 
of machine, different parts of which sense, perceive, discrimi- 
nate, imagine, remember, conceive, associate, reason about, 
desire, choose, form habits, attend to. Such a conception was 
adapted to the uses of writers of books on general method and 
arguments for formal discipline and barren descriptive psychol- 
ogies, but such a mind nowhere exists. There is no power of 
sense discrimination to be delicate or coarse, no capacity for 
uniformly feeling accurately the physical stimuli of the outside 
world. There are only the connections between separate sense 
stimuli and our separate sensations and judgments thereof, 
some resulting in delicate judgments of difference, some result- 
ing in coarse. There is no memory to hold in a uniformly tight 
or loose grip the experiences of the past. There are only the 
particular connections between particular mental events and 
others, sometimes resulting in great surety of revival, some- 
times in little. And so on through the list. Good reasoning 
power is but a general name for a host of particular capacities 
and incapacities, the general average of which seems to the 
namer to be above the general average in other individuals. 
Modern psychology has sloughed off the faculty psychology in 
its descriptions and analyses of mental life, but unfortunately 
reverts customarily to it when dealing with dynamic or func- 
tional relationships." * 

New Conception of Discipline. — Discipline in reality is there- 
fore something very different from the generalized effects which 

1 Thorndike, Educational Psychology, p. 29. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 757 

it is popularly supposed to be. By a discipline of body we 
mean that through exercise of function and experience of a 
given sort a tendency or potentiality for action in that given 
direction has been produced. The soldier is so trained that 
upon hearing the auditory stimulus, "Attention!" he immedi- 
ately assumes a given attitude. "Present arms!" is a stimulus 
causing immediate muscular responses in arms, hands, etc. A 
skater is a trained skater when he can execute with facility 
various muscular movements which he pictures to himself. 
One is a trained stenographer when upon hearing certain sound 
symbols the muscles of the hand and arm immediately, unhesi- 
tatingly, unerringly fall into desired ways of acting. The more 
reflex, habitual, and automatic the foregoing movements have 
become, the better trained, or in other words the better disci- 
plined the individual is in these directions. 

Correspondingly the mind when habituated to given ways of 
functioning is trained or disciplined in those directions. For 
example, one who can repeat instantaneously and unerringly 
the multiplication table, can give sight translations, sing by 
note, or rapidly think out mathematical equations, has his mind 
trained to function in those ways under given stimuli. The 
most effective thinking of the most abstract sort is accomplished 
best when most of the processes are familiar and semi-automatic. 
The physician is enabled to diagnose disease accurately by 
merely glancing at the patient or possibly on hearing of a single 
symptom only because long practice has linked absolutely in 
his associative processes certain external signs with certain 
ideas. We marvel when the great financier seems possessed of 
supernatural powers of prevision and instantaneously tells 
whether a given investment will be profitable or not. But he 
does this because his mind has been trained in handling certain 
data and has become habituated to certain stereotyped forms 
of mental functioning. 

Inasmuch as any physical work, no matter how complex, is 
made up of simple elements, it also follows that these elements 
can be woven into manifold new combinations. Whenever a 



758 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

new activity involves an element already learned that part of 
the process does not need to be again mastered. However, it 
must be recognized that not only the element, but also its con- 
nections have to be considered. One who has used the arm 
and hand in a variety of motions, which may be combined in 
using a brace and bit, a plane, a chisel, or a saw, or in adjusting 
watches has not therefore mastered carpentry or watch-making. 
If he has good general control of the hand he already has much 
capital to draw upon. But if the new process is an absolutely 
novel one as a whole and also in its elements then what has 
been learned is of no avail in the new direction. 

Similarly with mental operations. Almost any study in- 
volves elements that have been mastered in other connections. 
These elements are immediately serviceable. For example, in 
beginning the study of percentage it is found that the subject 
is mainly a combination of old principles and processes with 
only a slight addition of new ones. Algebra grows right out 
of the mathematical ideas gained in arithmetic; and calculus 
is but an extension and recombination of arithmetic, algebra, 
geometry, and trigonometry. When the ordinary child begins 
geography, mathematics, Latin, or German he has had several 
years' experience in reading and writing. He knows the use of 
letters and symbols, has acquired some knowledge of language 
classification and rules. He has in fact multitudes of elements 
as capital upon which he should immediately draw. Thus all 
studies are in a way related and to that extent the mastery of 
one helps in the acquisition of others. 

But it must not be forgotten that the combination of old, and 
even perfectly familiar, elements is a difficult matter in itself. 
Old combinations may even be a hindrance, especially if too 
fixed. Bad habits of walking, talking, writing, singing, or 
thinking are harder to modify than new ones are to inculcate. 
In percentage all one has to do is to apply the knowledge of 
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions. 
"All?" Yes. But ay, there's the rub. A student said to me 
once before commencing the study of the science of education: 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 759 

"Why, all one has to do is to learn psychology and then, just 
apply it." "Yes," I answered, "that is all you have to do." 
Before the year was over he discovered that learning to just 
apply it was a task not inferior in difficulty to anything he had 
ever undertaken. 

It is not- here maintained that the pursuit of a given subject 
can have no value in the study of another subject later pursued. 
It is claimed that exercise in a given direction produces greater 
growth of the special powers involved than in any other. Most 
subjects of instruction have a great many similar elements. As 
far as they have similar elements they are valuable for each 
other. The greater the number of identical elements in the 
two, the greater the value. Physics has a great many points 
in common with chemistry, geology with zoology, French with 
Latin, etc. All subjects are related to language and con- 
sequently language illuminates them all. But when we select 
two that are as far apart as typewriting and arithmetic, or as 
chemistry and Greek art, or as geology and dancing, or card- 
playing and Chinese, it is certain that the pursuit of one does 
not put one far ahead in the accomplishment of the other. 
Would a doctor of philosophy have any advantage over a high- 
school graduate in learning stenography or music ? According 
to the theory of formal discipline the years of study on thought 
problems ought to have increased ability in gaining the technique 
of music and typewriting — but it does not. 

Effect of Ideals. — Next in value to the elements of old knowl- 
edge which are utilized in learning new things there are certain 
ideals and attitudes toward work. There are no general facul- 
ties of attention, memory, and reason, which attend, memorize, 
and reason about one thing as well as another by simply " con- 
necting them up." But there are habits of attending to things, 
of trying to memorize, trying to reason; in short, habits of striv- 
ing for excellence, which are no mean possession. In fact, 
oftentimes the ideals of excellence and of application to duty are 
among the most valuable assets which the school-boy acquires. 
But he acquires these on the farm, in the store, or in the shop 



760 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

as well as in the school — frequently better. It depends largely 
upon the kind of associates he has. The value that we often 
so erroneously ascribe to a given subject or kind of work is more 
truthfully a benefit with which our parents, teachers, and asso- 
ciates should be credited. They may inculcate a desirable attitude 
toward all work which is of immense value in every relation in life. 
Correlation of Physical and Mental Effects. — There are some 
very curious attempts to get one kind of result from an entirely 
different form of training. Among the latest of these is the 
assumption that we are teaching morality through art and 
athletics. I have no word of fault with art or athletics; I be- 
lieve in both, but we should be satisfied with developing the 
aesthetic sense through art and strong bodies primarily through 
physical culture. Were morality a necessary function of art, 
Greece in her highest development of art would not have been 
the most corrupt in morals. Were morality a necessary func- 
tion of physical development we should find among savages 
many of the highest types of morality. To confirm the view that 
they are not necessary correlatives we would need only to men- 
tion a recent noble writer who was a poor hunchback and a 
sickly dwarf, and compare his morality with that of his brother, 
a champion athlete and a cowardly assassin. The former a 
hero, the latter a violator of nearly every command in the 
decalogue. The greatest hero on the foot-ball field may be the 
first to quail on facing an audience, he may be one of the first 
to cheat in an examination, or to commit a crime. Should he 
sin his physical culture is not the cause. Athletics and honesty 
are not in any way necessarily related. I heard a foot-ball en- 
thusiast argue at the National Educational Association that 
foot-ball develops those qualities which make men always co- 
operate in every enterprise. Now, he could equally well have 
said that in foot-ball the spirit of cornering the markets and 
forming coal trusts is developed. Foot-ball is a game of co- 
operation — for each side — but how about altruism toward the 
opponents ? All of the arguments here criticised are absolutely 
inapplicable. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 761 

The Relation Between Knowledge and Power. — The phrase 
mental power has been very inaccurately used in pedagogics. 
It is continually discussed from the platform and in the columns 
of educational magazines in a very indefinite and very erroneous 
way. In the discussions the term knowledge is usually coupled 
with it and is apologetically if not contemptuously referred to 
when compared with the term power. The term knowledge 
generally fares badly, is made to represent something appar- 
ently despicable, and is entirely outclassed by the term power. 
"Mere knowledge" is the current phrase which is made to do 
duty in exalting power and in minifying the significance of the 
possession of knowledge. 

The truth of the old adage that "knowledge is power" seems 
to be sadly discredited by many who love to discourse in glitter- 
ing generalities. But are the two terms mutually exclusive and 
incompatible or should the adage be raised into a higher signifi- 
cance than ever before ? Power, in physics, for example, means 
the ability to act or the capability of producing an effect, the 
capacity of undergoing or suffering change. It also means sus- 
ceptibility of acting or of being acted upon. Now power may 
be regarded as latent or inherent or as that which is put forth 
or exerted. That is, power is either active or passive. Ac- 
cording to Sir William Hamilton: "Power is, therefore, a word 
which we may use both in an active and passive signification; 
and in psychology we may apply it both to the active faculty and 
to the passive capacity of the mind." And again he says: 
" Power, then, is active and passive; faculty is active power or 
capacity; capacity is passive power." 

The passive or, perhaps better, the latent or potential aspect 
seems to have been largely lost sight of by writers on pedagogy. 
Let us again examine the various kinds of power which are the 
necessary antecedents of mental power and also examine the 
various phases of mental power. The individual begins life 
with the ability to receive sense impressions of the objective 
world about him. This is power — the power to receive im- 
pressions. It is partly physical, partly physiological, partly 



762 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

psychical; in the earliest days largely physical and physiological. 
That is, his sense organs are so constructed as to admit of being 
acted upon by certain physical or chemical forces, and his 
nervous mechanism is so developed that the stimuli send cur- 
rents of nervous energy to the brain cortex. If these stimuli are 
experienced as sensations or as perceptions there is manifested 
mental power. Preceding the reception of the sensation there 
must have been passive or latent power of sensation and in 
experiencing the sensation or perception there was manifested 
the active power. All animals (and some say plants) possess 
the mere sensitivity to impressions. This power is mainly 
physiological, but the interpretation of the data gained is psy- 
chical. Even as soon as there is consciousness of the data 
furnished by physical and physiological processes there is psy- 
chic life. It probably antedates even that. Now, this simplest 
and most elemental power is hereditary. And the higher the 
organism in the scale of life the greater the initial passive power. 
This signifies that through the multiplication of ancestral ex- 
periences in receiving impressions the potential capacity for 
receiving impressions has been increased for posterity. Thus 
far our investigation leads us to the conclusion that passive 
power for receiving impressions of the external world has been 
directly modified and produced by receiving those impressions, 
i. e., by getting knowledge. This permits us to say, at least, 
that knowledge gained produces power. Guyau said of power 1 
that "It is a pre-established constitutional adaptation, an apti- 
tude ready to be awakened and translated into actions. . . . 
Power is therefore nothing but a kind of residuum left by past 
actions and reactions." 

Next let us investigate the meaning of knowledge. Accord- 
ing to Webster, knowledge is that which is known, that which 
is preserved by knowing, or that familiarity which is gained by 
actual experience. He also says that it is practical skill, as, for 
example, a knowledge of seamanship. From the science of 
neurology we know that whenever any stimulus acts upon a 

1 Education and Heredity, p. 47. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 763 

sense-organ a wave of nervous impulse is transmitted to some 
central part of the nervous system and there it effects a change 
in the structure of the nervous tissue. Every psychosis has 
its corresponding neurosis. From the physiological side this 
modified neural structure represents the knowledge obtained 
and retained. Upon the recurrence of a similar stimulus a simi- 
lar neural change will take place which is interpreted by the mind 
as a similar sensation or perception. From the psychical side we 
know not how nor in what form experiences are stored, in fact we 
do not believe they are stored at all, but that all mental ex- 
periences perish in the process of being experienced. What recurs 
is a new combination of processes, similar to, yet different from, 
any preceding ones. But the psycho-physiological basis is well 
established. The neural modifications are retained ready to 
be reawakened by proper stimuli. We may speak of the ideas 
existing in the mind in this potential state without being called 
upon to explain how or in what form they are retained. The 
mind simply has the power, the possibility, and the tendency 
of working again the same way under conditions similar to 
those which determined the first existence of given experiences. 
Now, these physiological modifications and the corresponding 
mental modifications were produced by the acquisition of 
knowledge. Thus there is the acquisition of power, at least 
the power of reproducing and re-experiencing the same or 
similar states of consciousness. If we turn to the doctrine of 
apperception we also find substantiation of the view that the 
acquisition of knowledge gives power which determines the 
character of future acquisitions. The statement that new knowl- 
edge is interpreted in the light of that which is already in the 
mind indicates that knowledge gives us not only the power of 
reproduction of previous knowledge, i. e., the power of memory, 
but also determines the power of acquisition. When appercep- 
tion is defined from the physiological view-point these argu- 
ments receive reinforcement. We recall that an apperception 
is a perception whose character is determined not by the nature 
of the thing perceived but by the peculiar tendencies of the 



764 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

nervous system. Since the mind has been modified and has 
developed power through the acquisition of knowledge or in 
establishing relations among items of knowledge, it seems clear 
that one way at least of increasing power is through the acqui- 
sition of knowledge. 

The conception of various powers in the abstract must be 
relegated to the limbo of outgrown notions along with the 
doctrine of "faculties" in the abstract. A faculty considered 
as an active characteristic is simply the sum total of experi- 
ences of a given class, while viewed from the passive stand-point 
— that of possibilities or power — it represents the existing com- 
plex modifications resulting from the summation of all the 
previous experiences. Hence we may assert that in order to 
cultivate and increase power we should not concern ourselves 
with the cultivation of power in the abstract and in general, 
but with the cultivation of some specific power. To illustrate, 
we have demonstrated that the culture of the memory in a 
given direction does not improve the memory in a wholly dif- 
ferent direction. Without doubt, wherever there are common 
elements involved and common processes pursued in mem- 
orizing quite different facts there may be some gain. But it is 
very questionable whether practice in learning poetry will aid 
in remembering columns of figures, sets of nonsense syllables, 
or the names of chemical compounds. Whatever has once been 
committed to memory, although to all intents and purposes 
entirely forgotten, may be learned more easily the second time. 
This demonstrates the assumption that the acquisition of 
knowledge, though the facts are forgotten, leaves as a residuum 
a certain potentiality or power which may be turned to account 
in the acquisition of the same or similar knowledge. The 
doctrine of apperception, as has been shown, teaches that knowl- 
edge once acquired aids in the interpretation of all new knowl- 
edge, i. e., aids in comparing, discriminating, identifying, 
judging, generalizing, reasoning about the new facts. Thus the 
acquisition of given facts has increased the power of memoriz- 
ing the same kinds of facts; it has increased the habits of com- 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 765 

paring, discriminating, methods of reasoning, and has increased 
the power of judging and generalizing with reference to sim- 
ilar classes of facts. Aside from the critical attitudes and 
habits of mind engendered it has not changed the power of 
judging or reasoning about other entirely separate classes of 
facts. For example, practice in forming judgments concerning 
minerals will probably aid little in judging in a law court. 

One writer says: "If my mind were a tablet, and with a 
sponge I should erase every fact learned in school and college, 
and not directly applied in the arts there acquired, I should not 
be very poor; but were I to lose the mental power gained by the 
mastery of these facts, so many of which were long since forgot- 
ten, I should be poor indeed." Such reasoning is very fallacious 
and even pernicious in its effects. The assumption that power 
and knowledge are in no way vitally related has led to the under- 
valuation of knowledge and even to a contempt — especially by 
those who have limited amounts of it. This doctrine is preached 
to students and they are led to believe that power will in some 
mysterious way come to them and thus a contempt for learning 
is gained. While I am not exalting erudition at the expense 
of real knowledge and wisdom, yet I would maintain that facts 
are basal. Before relations among facts can be established, 
i. e., before reason and judgment can have sway, there must be 
facts among which to establish relations. 

The fallacy of the foregoing quotation rests upon the assump- 
tion that knowledge might be lost and power retained. When- 
ever we receive a fact, from the physiological side certain neural 
tracts are modified. If the fact is dwelt on long enough to 
make a definite impression the modification becomes a perma- 
nent part of the nervous structure. The modification, it is 
true, may itself be modified by later impressions, but the brain 
can never return to its original condition. Facts are just as 
truly retained as received. Knowledge is no less really retained 
than is power. The brain is different in potentiality for having 
received any impression. So the mind as a whole, after re- 
ceiving any impression, is different from what it was before 



766 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

receiving the stimulus. We may not be able to recall the given 
fact in the same way that it was received, but new ideas will all 
be different because of every preceding fact acquired. The 
mind at any given time is the resultant of all the forces that have 
acted upon it. These forces consist of heredity, environment, 
and the individual's own self-activity. We view the world 
through glasses colored by all the experiences of both ourselves 
and our ancestors. 

It is not to be maintained that the acquisition or collection of 
isolated facts will give the highest sort of power. The higher 
powers of comparison, discrimination, and judgment come from 
the establishment of relations among the elemental facts. But 
since all power is special, the higher types of power, it must be 
conceded, are dependent upon the lower. 

Probably feeling and will are in their last analysis as inde- 
pendent as intellectual states, yet each of these phases of mental- 
ity is influenced by and dependent upon knowledge. The higher 
sentiments and the higher volitional states are manifestly the 
outgrowth of the education of intellectual states. Inquire into 
the evolution of the appreciation of classic music or the strong 
will impelling one to lay down his life for the right and it will 
be seen readily that the feelings and the will have not developed 
independently. Of course the effects of exercise and habit are 
not overlooked, but intelligent direction only has been able to 
produce the habits. Thus we have shown that every phase of 
power can be traced for its elemental phases to the effects of 
knowing — and knowing is dependent upon facts. From the 
foregoing we should learn not to despise facts. The idea of 
"learning to do by doing" must be complemented by that of 
"learning to do by knowing." We should not despise facts, for 
it is through the acquisition of facts that power has evolved. 
Should we wish to increase intellectual power, one of the basal 
things to do would be to secure knowledge, either elemental or 
relational. Even if we wish to increase affective or volitional 
power, the best and only way is to base the growth of these 
phases of mentality upon intelligent knowing. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 767 

Importance of Content of Study. — The doctrine which main- 
tains that power is gained through exercise alone and that 
powers are entirely general rather than largely special, must log- 
ically maintain that it makes little difference as to what kind 
of fact is assimilated if only we keep up the mental gymnas- 
tics. I hold that it does make much difference what kind of 
knowledge is gained. To hold the contrary is to imperil the 
whole theory of moral growth. It makes all the difference in 
the world what knowledge our boys and girls receive. Their 
feelings are aroused by knowledge and their activities often 
determined directly by the facts they learn. 

Even from the side of the intellect it makes much difference. 
Were mental gymnastics the only requisite of intellectual growth, 
we might separate a child from his fellows, set him to playing 
checkers or chess, or learning Russian or Choctaw, and then he 
would be fitted for society, be capable of judging of human 
aqtions as well as though he had come in contact with objective 
facts dealing with society and human activities. 

Subjects Should Appeal as Worth While. — Why should sub- 
jects be studied if not for the intellectual gymnastics? We 
may ask a similar question about physical work. We can easily 
find good and sufficient reasons for doing physical and intel- 
lectual work without appealing to the theory of formal discipline. 
The work should be worth doing. If not it should be left un- 
done. The worthfulness of the ends secured through labor 
have been the dominating motives of all human work. No one 
normally goes through a treadmill existence for the sake of 
doing the treading. In adult life one does not do intellectual 
work for the sake of the exercise. When we plan buildings, 
lay out our political campaigns, develop war policies, or write 
books, we do not do so for the sake of the practice. The ends 
must appeal to us as being worth while in themselves. It may 
be that in executing a given kind of work we develop added 
power for similar kinds of work, but even that kind of motive 
would not keep us long at our task. The end to be accom- 
plished must be the magnet which draws us irresistibly on. 



768 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

The case is similar with children's activities. Normally they 
engage in all sorts of exercises for the sake of the end. Play has 
been denned as exercise which is careless of the ends to be se- 
cured. This is a false interpretation. Play not ruled by 
entrancing ends to be accomplished ceases to be play. True, 
when ends are accomplished new objects are at once conceived 
as worthful and new plays engaged in. But play in which the 
end does not lure the child on, becomes, like too much of his 
arithmetic and writing, mere drudgery. In these the objects 
are not understood or appreciated and hence are distasteful. 

The implication intended is that subjects should be studied 
because they are intrinsically valuable; because the possession 
of a knowledge of them is distinctly worth while. One of the 
highest arts of the pedagogue is to make the pupil see and ap- 
preciate these values and consequently to be so attracted by the 
acquisition that he is unsatisfied without them. Too much 
work is done without this attractiveness and consequently the 
work is mere drudgery and worth little when compared with 
that done under the white heat of interest. The boy should 
study arithmetic, not because he is to gain mental muscle for 
the practice of law or politics, but because the arithmetic is an 
indispensable thing for him -to know. He ought to be led to 
appreciate this, and can be under skilful guidance. He ought 
to study Latin because the Latin has intrinsic value. Grammar 
ought to be studied not for the gymnastics afforded, but for the 
sake of the grammar. If the disciplinarian's propositions were 
true then the kind of arithmetic and grammar would be imma- 
terial. The most antiquated cases in arithmetic, and the most 
obsolete grammatical forms would serve just as well as modern 
subject-matter. The elimination of archaic cases of "tare and 
trett," "alligation medial," the dropping of antiquated number 
forms and the substitution of modern, down-to-date terms 
would be a bootless task if the theory of formal discipline were 
true. The text-books on geography, arithmetic, and grammar 
of our grandfathers would do just as well as those containing 
more modern information if gymnastics were all that is required. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 769 

The formalist is apt to say that discipline for power is the 
object of all study, that the facts learned are forgotten anyway, 
that it makes little difference what one studies provided only 
that he studies hard (and pursues the formalist's favorite 
studies!). 

President David Starr Jordan, in his cogent article upon 
"The High School of the Twentieth Century," l makes the fol- 
lowing timely remarks: "There is needed in high-school and 
other educational practice a scientific examination of what is 
meant by 'mental discipline.' Much of our educational prac- 
tice at present rests on the tacit theory that when the child is 
obliged to exert himself strenuously in a limited field, he there- 
by acquires power in all fields. For generations it has been 
believed that the pupil who drilled on Euclid had his- 'reason- 
ing powers' so developed that they would be serviceable in any 
field demanding reasoning. So Latin is justified largely because 
it encourages linguistic and other forms of exactness. This 
doctrine, which underlies so much of the traditional curriculum 
of the high-school and early college years, has so little support 
from common-sense and psychology 2 that the coming adminis- 
tration of the high school will be obliged to examine it very 
critically. In view of the uncertainty last mentioned, many 
educators are inclining to believe that the best material for the 
high-school curriculum is that which makes a direct appeal to 
the pupil as being worth while, and which is taken by the pupil 
because it is felt to be worth while." 

Purpose of the Course of Study. — A critical consideration of 
formal discipline leads to some very important conclusions con- 
cerning the purposes and arrangement of a course of study. 

(1) Education is a process of adjustment of the individual and 
the race to varying situations to secure their highest welfare. 

(2) Particular adjustments demand particular experiences which 
cannot be furnished by any sort of general gymnastics. (3) 
Therefore, each type of adjustment must be secured through 
special appropriate forms of experience. (4) As life is so com- 

1 School Review, 12 : 547. 2 Italics mine. 



77o PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

plex, a great range of experiences is demanded to fortify the 
individual for his multiform situations. (5) The curriculum 
should represent prevised or preparatory experiences as well 
as permanent life experiences and hence must be varied. If 
limited in scope it denies experiences necessary for the varied 
development of each individual, and also fails to provide equally 
for all. (6) It is necessary to bear in mind that the education 
of the human race which produced the high degree of develop- 
ment which it now possesses was nearly all secured before schools 
and formal studies were invented or arranged. (7) Racial ed- 
ucation was nearly all gained through intensely practical and 
utilitarian means. Brain development and sharp wits were 
secured through the primal arts of maintaining existence, pro- 
viding food, shelter, and raiment, securing pleasure, guarding 
against pain, and providing for the perpetuation of the species. 
(8) In our scheme of education we must not forget the basal 
primitive means of culture. Schools and the formal school arts 
are not absolutely necessary. We are told that the educated 
Greek of the Homeric period frequently did not know how to read 
and write. It was sufficient that the ignorant slaves possessed 
these almost superfluous accessories. (9) My meaning is now, 
I trust, clearly apparent. All school arts should be developed 
out of life's pursuits and in turn contribute to the better accom- 
plishment of these activities. This is, I believe, precisely what 
Dewey means by urging the conception that education is life 
and life is education. Any arrangement of school curricula 
which fails to recognize these fundamental relations will fail 
to attract individuals and will fail to gain community support. 
The community and the individuals composing it — pupils in 
school included — seek first the satisfaction of the primal in- 
stincts. The boy who demands to know what use geometry 
will be is obeying the laws of nature no less than the falling ball 
obeys the law of gravitation. 

According to the extreme interpretation of the doctrine of 
formal discipline, it would make little difference as to the con- 
tent of the curriculum. All studies would be of equal value 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 771 

if equally difficult. Difficulties, drill, and drudgery seem to be 
the only qualities desired. The subject is regarded as a sort 
of mental grindstone upon which the wits of learners are to be 
sharpened; and the harder, flintier, and more disagreeable it 
can be made the more efficient instrument it is supposed to 
prove. The boy is told, when objecting thatftie has no taste 
for a subject, that it is the very one for him to' take. Anything 
in which he has an interest must be shunned as the plague. 

But, in truth, if the emotions, for example, are to be properly 
developed the mind must be occupied with ideas which arouse 
the emotions. How can the emotion of patriotism be aroused 
except through ideas which deal with fidelity, loyalty, and the 
necessity of the fraternal spirit? How can sympathy be awak- 
ened without knowledge of the feelings of joy, sorrow, sadness, 
despondency, etc. ? These can only be gained by witnessing 
them in others and experiencing them ourselves. No purely 
intellectual consideration alone can bring into life the deepest 
emotions. Emotional experience is an absolute condition of 
development. Arithmetic will not do it, geometry will not do 
it, linguistic drill fails, manual training fails, all fail except that 
which touches the germinal life of the emotions and adds to their 
potentialities. Darwin tells us that his later life was full of 
regret that he had no interest in music and art. The aesthetic 
failed completely to find response in him. He ascribes as a 
cause the excessive devotion through a long life to purely intel- 
lectual pursuits. His mind had become unsymmetrical by the 
hyperactivity in certain directions and the absence of exercise 
in others. 

We rightly say that ethical growth and culture are the highest 
ends of education. But in practice we ignore all laws for the 
attainment of these ends by centring the main current of the 
child's school life upon purely intellectual activities. We 
profess to be deeply concerned lest the child wander from the 
paths of rectitude, but instead of pre-empting his mind with high 
ideals such as could be gathered from literature and history we 
cause him to spend most of his school life in learning rules of 



772 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

mathematics and language and acquiring some degree of dex- 
terity in handling their forms and formulae. Now, arithmetic 
touches a great many rules, but nowhere in it could I ever dis- 
cover the " Golden Rule." No, the only way in which one 
could learn to do unto others as he would be done by is by 
associating with others and learning the meaning of altruism. 
This can be done partly through the living contact and partly 
through subjects which deal with similar situations. If moral 
growth is to be secured, instruction must have a moral content 
and the child must be exercised in dealing with situations in- 
volving moral activities, and in a higher stage his moral judg- 
ment must be appealed to. 

If we wish to secure development in any direction, specific 
exercise and nourishment must be secured in that direction. 
If many-sided development is to be produced, manifold exer- 
cise and nourishment must enter into the course of education. 
To stint in any direction is to dwarf growth in that particular, 
to overemphasize in a given direction is to produce abnormality 
or arrest of development. Excessive culture of physical powers 
and disregard for the intellectual and moral growth produces 
the brute; excessive intellectual culture alone develops the 
logician; while excessive cultivation of the emotions without 
due balance in other qualities produces sickly sentimentalism 
with blind, ungovernable passion. 

Prejudices Through Doctrine of Innate Ideas. — I believe that 
much energy has been misapplied in education because of the 
fallacious notion regarding the nature of mind. So long as the 
old doctrine of innate ideas is held in any form (though dis- 
guised so as to be hardly recognizable) a wrong view of education 
must ensue. According to that theory the mind is preformed 
with all its possibilities foreordained and the business of any 
educator, says Socrates and so says the Middle-Age philosopher, 
is to draw forth by exercise, by gymnastics to develop these ideas 
and bring them to maturity. In physical development the same 
theory was acted upon. Exercise, the trainers said, is the sine 
qua non for physical development. The strength is there, it 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 773 

needs only training to make it manifest. While partly true, 
still another indispensable factor is only just beginning to be 
recognized. The modern trainer not only provides gymnastics, 
but a training table as well. The general disciplinarians sim- 
ply added the unwarranted idea that not only is strength gained 
by the exercise, but it becomes perfectly diffused or generalized. 

Corrective Through Doctrine of Apperception. — Now, the 
mind also grows by what it feeds on. The mind is a functional 
product of all its past experiences. It cannot exercise on 
nothing. It is only exercised when dealing with facts. It 
grows only as experiences accumulate. To chew sole leather 
would furnish exercise, but little nutriment. Mental gymnas- 
tics upon valueless material is equally inane. 

The apperception theory of the mind, first formulated by 
Herbart, changes the whole point of view of instruction and 
education. According to this theory the mind can grow in a 
given direction, only through experience received in that direc- 
tion. Vague and general gymnastics cannot develop the mind 
because it can only lay hold of those new experiences for which 
former experiences have fitted it. According to this theory, we 
cannot develop the sight without seeing, the hearing without 
hearing, the emotions without feeling. The subject-matter then 
becomes of great moment. It must have desirable content, and 
not be mere form; must nourish, not merely discipline. To 
teach a boy to think he must have something to think about. 
No formal logic can ever make a thinker. The mind must 
have facts to compare. 

Dr. Dewey wrote: "No number of object-lessons, got up as 
object-lessons for the sake of giving information, can afford 
even the shadow of a substitute for acquaintance with the 
plants and animals of the farm and garden, acquired through 
actual living among them and caring for them. No training 
of sense-organs in school, introduced for the sake of training, 
can begin to compete with the alertness and fulness of sense- 
life that comes through daily intimacy and interest in familiar 
occupations. Verbal memory can be trained in committing 



774 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

tasks, a certain discipline of the reasoning powers can be ac- 
quired through lessons in science and mathematics; but, after 
all, this is somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the 
training of attention and of judgment that is acquired in having 
to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome 
ahead." ' 

Dr. Albion W. Small wrote: 2 "Sociology has no tolerance, 
however, for the pedantry that persists in carpentering together 
educational courses out of subjects which are supposed to exer- 
cise, first, the perceptive faculty, then the memory, then the 
language faculty, then the logical faculty, etc., etc., etc. On 
the contrary, every represented contact of a person with a portion 
of reality sooner or later calls into exercise every mental power 
of that person, probably in a more rational order and proportion 
than can be produced by an artificial process. Our business as 
teachers is primarily, therefore, not to train particular mental 
powers, but to select points of contact between learning minds 
and the reality that is to be learned. The mind's own autonomy 
will look out for the appropriate series of subjective mental 
processes." Hall wrote: 3 "Although pedagogues make vast 
claims for the moralizing effect of schooling, I cannot find a 
single criminologist who is satisfied with the modern school, 
while most bring the severest indictments against it for the blind 
and ignorant assumption that the three R's or any merely intel- 
lectual training can moralize." 

Angell says: "It should, however, be remarked that, strictly 
speaking, there is probably no such thing as a purely disciplin- 
ary study. Any study is likely to be robbed of its good name 
and labelled a formal discipline, if somebody chances to allege 
that it is good for something beside that for which it obviously 
exists. The implication of our deliberations would be that 
every study has latent in it the possibilities of becoming to some 
extent a formal or general discipline. Its pursuit may effect 
intellectual changes not confined to the topic with which it is 

1 Dewey, The School and Society, p. 24. 

2 Proc. N. E. A., p. 177. 3 Adolescence, I, p. 407. 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 775 

ostensibly engaged. Meantime, it seems to be a safe and con- 
servative corollary of this doctrine that no study should have a 
place in the curriculum for which this general disciplinary 
characteristic is the chief recommendation. Such advantage 
can probably be gotten in some degree from every study and the 
intrinsic values of each study afford at present a far safer 
criterion of educational worth than any which we can derive 
from the theory of formal discipline." 1 

What Subjects Develop Most Thought. — Those subjects de- 
velop the mind most which stimulate the most thinking. Now 
which of the subjects occupy the pupil's thoughts when not 
actually required to prepare his lessons? It seems to me there 
can be but one answer. Those which deal with things and 
human activities. What subjects deal with these? Plainly 
literature, history, economics, sociology, science. The Chicago 
Record- Her aid showed upon investigation that in almost every 
public library boys were seeking books on electricity. Great 
stacks of history and literature find their way without compul- 
sion into the boys' and girls' hands. 

The boys and girls in the high schools are just ready to grap- 
ple with many of these important problems which occupy the 
theatre of action about them. Listen to their debates. What 
do they choose for topics? How, I ask, shall we fit them to 
form intelligent opinions about strikes, the tariff, Cuban reci- 
procity, Philippine independence, the city taxes, municipal 
boodlers, government ownership, etc.? Kaiser Wilhelm said 
they must train up young Germans, not young Romans. 
Similarly it is incumbent upon any nation to train its growing 
boys and girls through the problems of current life and through 
those forms of culture which enable them to interpret the pres- 
ent. That which is historical in literature, language, or science 
may have a very vital influence, but only when its relation to 
the present becomes apparent. 

Our boys and girls of to-day are to be in the midst of the world's 
affairs to-morrow, and still in view of this there are those who 

1 Angell, Educational Review, June, 1908. 



776 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

would designedly shut them off from the world, busy them with 
expressions of thought absolutely remote from present-day 
interests, make them learn forms and formulae which the ma- 
jority will never use directly or indirectly; all in the hope, well 
meant, that they will thus learn to think. The only way to 
learn to think is to deal with fundamental concepts which are 
felt to be worth while. If we merely wish to give something 
hard, why not give them Russian or chess? 

Arrangement of the Curriculum. — In view of the foregoing 
may we not conclude that the different studies should be ar- 
ranged so that the traditional subjects shall receive no more at- 
tention than others, except from those pupils who intend to 
specialize? The course might well include some Latin for all; 
possibly a year or two, and more for those who specialize. It 
certainly ought to include some modern language, as that is 
a means of gaining touch with present-day civilization, affords 
as much so-called discipline as the classics, and is very apt to 
be of direct value. English should be accorded its rightful 
place, not as a parsing exercise — we spend years too much time 
on that sort of profitless work now — but English which leads 
the student into all the best thoughts of all times. The youth 
should become saturated with the greatest literature, and through 
the ideas assimilated his entire life should receive bias and direc- 
tion. The sciences should be included in every course for every 
student — not enough to be specialized, but enough to open "up 
the whole vista of possibilities. History should be accorded 
more than the stingy place now given it. All should be given 
introductory courses in algebra and geometry, but two years in 
the high school should be ample. Is it not inconsistent when 
we plead for all-round culture and then shut the youth up 
through more than half his school days with nothing but words, 
words, words? The narrowest sort of specialization! The one 
who studies natural science three or four years is dubbed a nar- 
row specialist, while the one who studies dead languages twice 
as long is said to be gaining all-round training and laying a 
broad foundation! 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 777 

Then, lastly, there should be added to the groups one which 
we may term the social group. In it would be included civics, 
something of political economy, social facts and forces, ethics, if 
possible a little psychology, and a consideration of educational 
questions. I do not mean the pedagogy of teaching arithmetic, 
but such questions as school taxes, the relation of the school to 
the state, its value to society, the significance of early education 
in forming correct habits, the value of co-operative educational 
factors, etc. In the university, according to real needs, I be- 
lieve we should require of all the language and literature of the 
mother tongue, some foreign language and literature, history, 
economics, sociology, several sciences (including physiology), 
philosophy, ethics, psychology, and education. These are the 
ones that help most in producing an adjustment to environment. 
Abundant opportunity should be given to every one to take any 
other subjects of human value as electives. The range of elec- 
tives offered should be wide and the instruction afforded should 
be exhaustive. 

Relation Between Utility and Culture. — We must break down 
the false notion of the absolute difference between that which is 
of utility and that which affords culture. In an ideal education 
they will be identical. Any study is cultural and highly edu- 
cative which gives power (knowledge), puts one in touch with 
and in sympathy with civilization; makes one open-minded, 
gives one breadth of interests, makes one interesting and likable, 
refined, and useful to society. True culture means developed 
intellect and refined feelings; deals with morality as well as 
with things intellectual. Dr. Draper says that one may obtain 
culture from Latin and Greek, also from building bridges. 
Those subjects then, it would seem to me, afford most culture 
which come nearest to life's interests. It is the business of the 
school to help the pupil find those interests. No study in the 
course has a right to a place for its formal discipline alone. 
Who would crack nuts for the exercise in cracking them ? The 
facts themselves should be of sufficient value to justify their 
contemplation. The old doctrine of educational gymnastics 



778 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

must give way to the new one of nurture. The mind grows 
by what it feeds on, as well as through exercise. 

All development in nature has come about because exercise 
and nourishment in a given direction have produced develop- 
ment in that direction. Hence if we would develop the pupil 
physically he must have physical exercise and food; if he is to 
be developed mentally he must have mental food and exercise; 
if he is to be developed morally he must have moral nutrition, 
i. e., knowledge of things moral, and be exercised in the per- 
formance of moral acts. If the pupil's social nature is to be 
developed, there is but one way, and that is by placing him in 
a social environment. The one who pores over his grammar 
and his mathematics, and excludes himself from society, will 
grow up anti-social. Now, all school life from the kindergarten 
through the university should have for one purpose the discov- 
ery of aptitudes and interests, and the developing of the same. 
These interests should be many-sided. Since growth is special, 
breadth of interests, largeness of view, and judicial-mindedness 
can only come by touching life at many points. Poring over 
one's grammar, valuable as it may be, will not develop one's 
social nature, one's political interests, will not enlarge one's 
views of men and events. These can only be gained through 
nourishment secured from knowledge along these lines. The 
college student who becomes a recluse starves his nature in some 
of the more important directions. He becomes narrow and 
contracted and unable to sympathize with society. Equally 
undesirable is it for the student to spend all his time in society 
of the present and never know the great truths which books 
may reveal to him. The student may say, "I study men, not 
books." This is sound, if rightly interpreted, but he should 
understand that there are some men besides freshmen well worth 
knowing. 1 

Many-Sidedness of Interest. — I plead for the cultivation of 
breadth of interests and the connecting of formal school work 

1 See Bolton's "Ethical Aspects of Mental Economy," Pop. Set. Mo., 71 : 246- 
257- 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 779 

with life's interests. "But," says some one, "many interests are 
utilitarian." Granted; but utilitarian does not necessarily 
mean mercenary. By utilitarian, I mean that which can be 
utilized in connection with life's pursuits and interests. Sir 
Wm. Hamilton says a utilitarian is "Simply one who prefers 
the useful to the useless; and who does not ?" The poet studies 
the flowers, the changing tints of the rainbow, the birds of the 
air, the hills and vales, and then bursts forth into song utilizing 
the stores of images he has gathered. The engineer, the archi- 
tect, the inventor, the railway superintendent, the landscape 
artist, the business promoter, all utilize stores of imagery in 
developing their various plans. Shall we not hold their works 
in as high esteem as those of the poet, the philosopher, the 
statesman, or the classicist? A sanitary engineer purines a 
city and makes possible the development of vigorous bodies, 
which in turn provide conditions for sound mental life. These 
together promote cheerfulness and higher ideals. Is his not as 
high an order of service to humanity as that of one who writes 
verses, paints pictures, or echoes a foreign tongue or two ? The 
one who designs a beautiful, commodious, and hygienic structure 
certainly displays as much mental power as one who teaches 
history, Latin, or philosophy within it. His contribution to the 
elevation of society also may be equally great. In developing 
architectural skill he has secured soul expansion not less than 
the classicist. To be sure they are of different types, but society 
progresses only with differentiation and specialization. 1 

The public high schools and colleges should ever remain true 
centres of liberal culture, but that does not mean that they 
should assume that only a certain few protected subjects are 
cultural. The liberality comes from the breadth of interests 
stimulated, the development of a scientific spirit and an open- 
ness of mind. The method which pervades is more indicative 
of liberality and culture than the program of studies. We 
may teach dead languages, but the teacher and the method need 

1 See Bolton's "Facts and Fictions Concerning Educational Values," School 
Review, 12 : 170-188. 



780 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

not be dead. On the other hand, biology may be taught after 
a method that stifles expansive spiritual growth. Great abid- 
ing interests, breadth of view, and richness of social service are 
marks of culture; adherence to tradition, contracted vision, and 
selfishness of action are marks of pedantry. Melville B. Ander- 
son wrote: "The way to educate a man is to set him to work; 
the way to get him to work is to interest him; the way to interest 
him is to vitalize his task by relating it to some form of reality." 
President Eliot said in his address on "The New Definition of a 
Cultivated Man" that a cultivated man should possess not all 
knowledge, but that "which will enable him, with his individual 
personal qualities, to deal best and sympathize best with nature 
and with other human beings." 

Supreme Importance of Great Teachers. — Finally, and of 
greatest importance as educative factors, are the personality and 
influence of the living men and women who are in the environ- 
ment of the youth. We are too apt to regard education like 
a manufactory. So many units of Latin, mathematics, and 
history put into the hopper we assume will give us back an 
educated being. But no matter how well proportioned the 
mixture may have been, unless the great truths and worthy 
ideals have been transformed into spiritual forces, all is unavail- 
ing. Civic ideals and moral virtues may have been rehearsed, 
but only when they have quickened dormant possibilities into 
abundant life have they been to any worthy degree educative. 
Now, great, inspiring, living teachers can do infinitely more 
than the mere pursuit of a subject toward the determination of 
what shall take root. Next, and perhaps not even second in 
importance, is the influence of companions. Some one has said 
with great truth that we send our boy to the school-master to 
be educated, but the school-boys educate him. They largely 
determine a youth's interests, and almost entirely his actions. 
And after all, actions count most. We will with all we have 
willed, and every act is the beginning of a habit that becomes a 
life-long phantom tyrant. 

Hence, although every subject may contribute to will-power, 



GENERAL DISCIPLINE 781 

the direction in which that power will be applied is absolutely 
determined by the great interests and passions which may 
happen to lay hold of the youth's life. So the course of study, 
the paper curriculum, which every new principal "revises" is a 
secondary matter. The all-important thing is to have great 
souls which breathe out abundant life, inspiring and invigorating 
all with whom they come in contact. 



INDEX 



789 



Phylogeny, 83. 

Physical care, 257. 

Physical growth precedes mental, 

124. 
Pictures, 499. 
Pillsbury, 376, 378. 
Plastic period, importance, 56. 
Plasticity, meaning of, 8. 
Play, 4, 160, 258, 284. 
Powell, 94. 

Power and knowledge, 761. 
Prepotentialities, hereditary, 8. 
Primitive arts, value of, 5. 
Print, size of, 295. 
Projection fibres, 48. 
Protozoans, 17, 29, 30. 
Psychic development, order of, 129. 
Psychogenesis, law in, 164. 
Psychological vs. chronological, 114. 
Psycho-physical parallelism, 238. 
Psychotherapeutics, 249. 

Quain, 234. 
Queyrat, 493. 

Rabl, 76. 

Reading, association in, 52-54. 

Reasoning, 587; see also Ittduction 
and Deduction. 

Recall, modes of, 390. 

Recapitulation: theory of, 63-87; law 
stated, 65; human, 69; evidences, 
70; stages, 71; in nervous system, 
72; incomplete, 85; educational 
significance, 88-106; not fatalistic, 
91; and order of development, 91; 
and relative values of knowledge, 
106; can not determine exact cur- 
riculum, 113. 

Recorde, Robert, 176. 

Reed, 309. 

Reflex arc, diagram, 32. 

Reformative measures, 315. 

Rein, 109. 

Renaissance, present-day, 257. 

Reproduction, 333, 337. 

Responsibility and interest, 691. 

Retrogressions, 68. 

Reverberations, 166. 

Reviews, 555. 

Reynolds, 412. 

Rhabanus Maurus, 256. 



Ribot, 82, 83, 184, 186, 188, 189, 379, 

476, 586, 656. 
Robinson, 79, 80. 
Romanes, 24, 35, 70, 148, 149, 150, 

203, 243. 
Ross, 122. 
Royce, 166, 175, 265, 410, 414, 

708. 
Rudimentary organs, 66. 
Russell, 93. 

Sachs, 187. 

Schaeffer, 448, 450, 517, 735. 

Schmidt, Oskar, 68, 69. 

Schofield, 250. 

School diseases, 285. 

School, interpreter of experience, 7. 

Science, order in teaching, 134. 

Scott, no, in, 485. 

Scripture, 579. 

Search, 309, 319. 

Seashore, 300. 

Sedgwick, 92, 185. 

Selection, importance of, 217. 

Self -activity: beginnings of, 28; in 

plants, 28; and interest, 690. 
Sensation, 465. 
Sense awakening before reflection, 

100. 
Sense-organs, efficiency of, 449. 
Sensori-motor action, 402. 
Shakespeare and imagination, 409- 

S«- 

Shaw, 296, 376. 

Shinn, 158. 

Short circuits, 83. 

Sidis, 410. 

Sikorsky, 271. 

Simple to complex, 138. 

Sleep, 289. 

Small, M. H., 478, 

Small, A. W., 774. 

Snail, nervous system of, 34. 

Snellen, test letters, 293. 

Social heredity and morality, 225. 

Socrates, 772. 

Soldan, 561. 

Spalding, 655. 

Specialization: of function, 16-27; in 
nervous system, 28; significance for 
education, 28; cerebral, 50. 

Speech, order in development, 131. 



79° 



INDEX 



Spelling, 387. 

Spencer, 99, 106, 133, 138, 139, 157, 

208, 239, 243. 
Spiral plan, 607. 
Stanley, 640. 

Starfish, nervous system, 33. 
Starling, 249. 
Steinthal, 521. 
Stevenson, 420. 
Stewart, 250. 
Stokes, 395. 
Stout, 472, 561. 
Strahan, 187. 
Study periods, 382. 
Suggestion, 355; and interest, 687. 
Sully, 157, 409, 590. 
Sutton, 75. 
Survival movements, 77. 

Tanner, 264. 

Tarde, 410. 

Teachers, importance of great, 780. 

Thinking, 584-600; preliminary 
meaning, 584; in other processes, 
584: higher phases, 589; effective, 
590; independence in, 591; school 
should train in, 593; and language, 
595; habits of, 596; concentration 
in, 598. 

Thomson, 184, 185, 1S6, 1S7, 
212. 

Thorndike, 224, 271, 313, 739, 742- 

744, 756. 

Thurston, 547. 

Titchener, 269, 354, 366, 635. 

Tracy, 407, 656. 

Transformations in process, 69. 

Transmission of acquired characters, 
198. 

Tuberculosis, hereditary predisposi- 
tions, 185. 

Tuke, 232, 233, 234. 

Turner, 79. 

Twins, history of, 215. 

Tyler, 122, 125. 

Tyndall, 500. 

Understanding, 472; of words, 523. 
Unfoldment, order of, 11, 96. 
Uniformity, 321. 
Unity of mental life, 587. 



Use and disuse, 56. 
Utility, 777. 

Van Liew, 109. 

Variations, germinal, 211. 

Venn, 60, 324. 

Verworn, 404. 

Vestigial structures, 73. 

Vitality and mentality, 227. 

Volition, 705-735; meaning, 705; 
genesis of voluntary action, 706; 
movements involved in, 708; ini- 
tial stages of, 710; low degree of, in 
feeble-minded, 711; individual vari- 
ations in, 713; relation to impulses, 
715; relation to "free-will," 716; 
and freedom, 719; educational sug- 
gestions, 722; directions of control, 
723; motor culture and moral 
culture, 725; intellectual control, 
726; emotional control, 728; see, 
also, Will. 

Von Baer, 65, 70. 

Votaw, 286, 288. 

Wallace. 63, 71, 72, 150, 199. 

Warner, 58, 161, 2S9, 565, 709. 

Weight, 310. 

Weismann, 198, 211, 216. 

Welton, 595. 

"Whetstone of Witte," 176. 

Whewell, 459. 

Whitaker, 43. 

Whitman, 415. 

Whittier, 456. 

Wiedersheim, 304. 

Will: meaning, 705; strong, 713; 
means accumulated tendencies, 715; 
and freedom, 719; and delibera- 
tion, 734; habit and character, 734; 
see, also, Volition. 

Witt, 518. 

Woods, 185, 194. 

Work, fatigue, and hygiene, 260-301; 
and rest periods, 273. 

Wright, 269. 

Wundt, 476, 531. 

Zeissing, 304. 

Zoological and psychological scale 
compared, 244. 



inBJe'28 



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